The Opera Queen

Tag: colour

Hannu Lintu, conductor, Finland, classical, opera

Hannu Lintu Travels Into The Forest Of Pelléas et Mélisande

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On July 15, 2024

In classical, Europe, interviews, music, opera

Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera that inspires automatic if not always well-founded ideas: it’s (seemingly) impenetrable; it’s the French Tristan und Isolde; it’s romantic; it’s intense; it’s ultimately very tragic. It is also, in the words of conductor Hannu Lintu, something people may find “baffling.”

Yet Lintu, who is currently leading a new production of the opera with Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, has found a unique clarity in Debussy’s 1902 opera, itself based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 symbolist play of the same name about a tragic love triangle of two half-brothers who love the same woman. Dutch director Jetske Mijnssen’s new staging premiered earlier this month as part of the annual Münchner Opernfestspiele, a co-production with The Dallas Opera running through 22 July featuring Ben Bliss and Sabine Devieilhe as the doomed titular lovers, along with Christian Gerhaher as the jealous Golaud, Sophie Koch as Geneviève, and Franz-Josef Selig as Arkel. Lintu, who is also Chief Conductor of Finnish National Opera, emphasizes the work’s episodic structure and uses its orchestral interludes not merely as time-filling transitions but as both commentary and complementary characters on and within the unfolding narrative. This musical approach serves to heighten the dramatic interplay between characters as well as underline the extreme tension of their world – its mystery, mysticism, and narrative momentum. Set and costume designer Ben Baur has created a world that channels both the time of the opera’s premiere (the early 20th century) while adding abstract elements and making substantial use of water, which becomes a visual motive. The decidedly structured approach Lintu takes to the score is intriguingly complemented and contrasted by such textured visual cues, highlighting both the form and the formlessness that awkwardly co-exist and fight for dominance via the interwoven relationships within the opera.

Along with his duties at Finnish National Opera, Lintu is also Music Director of Orquestra Gulbenkian in Portugal, and will become artistic partner of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in Finland in autumn 2025. He has lead a number of celebrated orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Orchestre National de Radio France, to name a few. Lintu’s varied repertoire features an intriguing mix of old and new, with a distinct focus on the latter; the works of contemporary or near-contemporary composers (Magnus Lindberg, Thomas Larcher, Sebastian Fagerlund, Kaija Saariaho) feature prominently along with an assortment of 20th century works by Lutoslawski, Berio, Zimmerman, and Messiaen, with recordings done for Ondine, BIS, Naxos, Avie and Hyperion. A 2012 recording of George Enescu’s Second Symphony (Ondine) with Lintu leading the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award, one of many nominations the conductor has received from the prestigious music magazine, and one of many outlets who have praised and recognized his wide-ranging work; Lintu is multiple GRAMMY nominee who is also the recipient of two International Classical Music Awards. 

In his native Finland, Lintu has lead a range of operatic works including Wozzeck, Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni, Dialogues des Carmelites, Turandot, Salome, and Billy Budd. Earlier this year he completed the house’s massive Wagner Ring Cycle with Götterdämmerung, having already lead performances of Die Walküre and Siegfried from 2022. Music writer Anna Aalto noted in June that “(u)nder his direction, the orchestra’s sound is rich and velvety, and the details of the music are thoughtful and intense. The brass section stands out as mesmerizing and well-balanced.” (Seen & Heard International, June 6, 2024) This attention to balance is just as noticeable in his Pelléas in Munich. Lintu and I spoke about achieving that balance, along with his history with the opera, the role of language, and his ideas on the notion of “colour”, a word important to the music of Debussy, and not always easily achieved. Our conversation took place two days after the production’s opening, with the conductor offering detailed musical reflections, highlighting the work’s inherent connections to its contemporaries as well as its inherent mystery and beauty.

Pelléas et Mélisande, Bayerische Staatsoper, stage, Jetske Mijnssen, staging, stage, performance, opera, classical, music, theatre

Ben Bliss as Pelléas and Sabine Devieilhe as Mélisande in Bayerische Staatsoper’s new production of Debussy’s opera. Photo: Wilfried Hoesl

When did you first encounter Pelléas? And how have your perceptions changed since that time?

The history is long – I remember when I was still in high school and I was playing piano and cello. I always went to a local music library, which was huge, and I remember borrowing the score of Pelléas and and trying to read it and realizing that I couldn’t understand a single measure of it. I was probably 16 or 17 and I had already been playing Debussy’s preludes and things like that, but I had the feeling that (the opera) was some kind of thick forest which I could not penetrate or even step into. But I was listening to it a lot with the score when I was young.

Then I started to study conducting – I became very symphony-focused – though I saw a couple of productions at various points and then bought the score because I thought, ah, that it’s one of those pieces of the 20th century that I really need to know! My approach then wasn’t for performance but purely for analysis. I bought the play also, the Finnish translation, and read it a couple of times, and I knew a bit of the philosophy in its background, although I always found, as a whole, it was difficult to digest as a musician; it takes time before this work gets into your system. I could see the details but I couldn’t put them together, a problem throughout much of Debussy’s music: it’s made up of so many details and so many layers, hidden meanings without an actual horizontal line – well it is horizontal, but not in the melodic way, it’s mostly it’s vertical, with many fascinating things going on with the harmonies and the middle voices. So I was lost in the forest, metaphorically, in a different way – but now I could actually penetrate that forest.

In preparing for this production I started to work on two different levels: studying the score as if it were a symphonic poem of some kind, and reading the text. I’m not a French speaker and I knew that I would be working with these fantastic singers who, all except one, speak French – and I have done some French operas, like Carmen, Dialogues des Carmelites, but Pelléas is a very different approach to the French language. When I came to Munich and met the soloists for the first time I said, “Look, you have all done this” – except Christian Gerhaher, who had sung Pelléas before, not Golaud – “but you have done this and I have not.” It was actually a fascinating situation. I said, “I am now approaching you, actually not with a solution, but with questions.” This was my attitude during the whole rehearsal process: I wanted to learn from them.

When the orchestra came in I tried to combine the German orchestra sound and my own orchestra sound into something which I think might be a little bit French. It’s been a very complex and joyful process at the same time. It’s fascinating to think about all the ways music goes into musicians’ brains, and then of course how it comes out, because it’s not only just getting it into your system, but it’s also technical: how does this music enter into my technique? And how am I able to transmit my ideas to the musicians?

I want to pick up on one of those ideas; you said in a Staatsoper video interview that Debussy should be “in shape”– I could hear that structure at the premiere. Did this arise through that study or was it something that came with rehearsals and being around singers?

Well, at some point the themes became more familiar, and they clarified especially when I started to see what was about to happen on stage – when I saw the movement. For me movement is really important; I play with it. I need to see people moving when I conduct opera, because that gives me a goal. Each scene in Pelléas has its own musical shape; each one of them is a musical piece as such, which could be performed separately, almost sometimes in some kind of a form, not necessarily a classical form, but maybe a form which comes from, even from earlier times – Renaissance or Baroque. Each scene has its own arc. The only piece that comes to my mind here is Wozzeck, which is built in the same way; each scene has its own musical form. But for Debussy it was more, I think, subconscious in the way he created Pelléas.

At some point during the rehearsals I tried to play each piece, each scene, as if it were the only one, standing on its own feet. And then later when the orchestra came along, I tried to connect these forms. How the story develops is actually very strange because so little happens in the beginning. When the first act ends, I always have this feeling like, “Where is this going?”

… which is very symbolist…

Yes! And these symbols say a lot about the time in which the opera was written, in 1902. I remember when I read the play for the first time, those symbols were a little bit more touching and I have a feeling that Debussy lost part of the symbolist nature of the play because he was so involved with the vocal writing and the orchestration – I might be wrong! The form is there, then it develops, eventually into disaster, but then it doesn’t end – there’s one more act, which is almost half an hour, like a kind of epilogue. The question arises: why did Debussy take it there? Maybe he wanted to create another world. The structure of that final section is entirely different than the others. The whole opera is episodic, and I wanted to show that this epilogue is commenting on what has happened before.

Pelléas et Mélisande, Bayerische Staatsoper, stage, Jetske Mijnssen, staging, stage, performance, opera, classical, music, theatre, Sabine Devieilhe, Debussy

Sabine Devieilhe as Mélisande in Bayerische Staatsoper’s new production of Debussy’s opera. Photo: Wilfried Hoesl

I suspect the epilogue is also a commentary on the nature of inherited trauma…

You could be right.

… the musical language has a sense of doom. Regarding that language, I wonder how much of your other work, particularly that of Messiaen, Berio, Enescu, and of course Kaija Saariaho, was in your head when you were going through the score.

It wasn’t consciously doing that, but now that you say it, there’s lots of Kaija’s music, especially in that fifth act of Pelléas. As to Messiaen, I just conducted some early works of his, and they are very Debussy-like in the language – so I think that’s where his harmonies grew from, although it’s organized as an instrument, of course, and turns the musical language to another direction.

You can approach Pelléas from two different sides: from the past, which would include Wagner and probably some French composers before Debussy; and then of course, what came afterwards. I think Debussy is one of those composers we all know was incredibly influential in terms of what’s happened in the 20th century – him, Stravinsky, Webern, and all these great masters from the beginning of the 20th century. Their works are still modern. We probably need to live a couple of hundred years more before we really understand their music. I was thinking about this other night – we pretend that we do (understand), but especially with regards to Debussy, except for La Mer, people are a bit baffled. “What is happening? I don’t get it. I’m getting a little bit intimidated” – whereas the musicians are like, “Oh, this is so beautiful!” Debussy’s music hasn’t entirely reached the ordinary public, but it is going to – it is still travelling towards us.

Or us toward it…

Yes.

Do you think that the journey for appreciating Debussy might be helped along by programming more contemporary, or at least complementary composers more often?

I have always believed in showing the connections, whether it’s the connection between Beethoven, Wagner, or Mahler, or Mahler and Berg. I understand that the people who come to concerts may not have time, knowledge, or interest in educating themselves in this way. But I think we, who plan the programs and do the programming, could take a little more responsibility and gradually show them that the history of music is continuous, and that’s how the so-called canon is built. And those composers who are important, they are important because they influenced others, not because some musicologists or musicians have decided that they are or must be the greatest. They would have been great anyway, because they affected so many other composers. I think of Kaija and I know that some of her ideas, yes, came from Debussy and some of them came from Messiaen, and some came from others.

Hannu Lintu, conductor, Finland, classical, opera

Photo: Marco Borggreve

So what kinds of things do you carry back, then, from this experience? You’re not finished the run yet, but what ideas or approaches might you carry back to the Finnish National Opera?

I don’t know yet, but certainly, whenever you do a big piece like this, which is, again, if we are talking about the 20th century, if we’re talking about Salome, Elektra, Wozzeck, these pieces which every conductor wants to do, you think of the structure. If something has changed, I’m not sure what it is yet. I’m almost sure that if I have changed, I will notice it after I have started to do something else. When the run here ends, I will be going on to Cleveland, Music Academy in the West, Tanglewood and Taipei also, doing the music of Sibelius, Walton, Mahler, Bruckner, and Saariaho… so when I get into the various pieces I’m set to do in those places, it’s possible that I will do them differently because of this experience – but I don’t know it yet, because now I’m still living Pelléas here.

“Colour” is a word used not only applied to the music of Debussy, but to that of many composers whose works you’ve done. Have your ideas on colour changed through the years?

We tend to speak of colours in music and very often we don’t actually have any idea what we are talking about. You read the critics: “Oh, there’s those wonderful colours” – but sometimes it’s just words. There are composers like Sibelius, who was incredibly synesthetic in his thinking, and he heard every key in its own colour, but then there is no direct connection from this into the score itself, how we experience it and how we play it, so I would say that colour is technique. It’s the composer’s technique to orchestrate, and then the musicians’ technical abilities to do exactly what the composer wanted to do. Debussy wrote a lot of instructions, as did Mahler and Bartok. You should read those instructions carefully. They knew words, and whenever there’s a word in the score, they are very important. But mainly colour is a very simple thing: play at the tip of the bow, or more pressure, or short, long, achieving a balance that reveals and makes those colours.

If you look at the orchestration of Pelléas, you very soon noticed that use of brass is very subtle; they very seldom play. A tuba plays probably four or five notes, and there are some beautiful trumpet melodies also, as well as various motives – I almost think that that’s something he learned from Wagner’s scores. It was actually something we worked on, the brass balance. So… yes, colour is technique, it’s orchestration, and then trying to do what the score says.

Pelléas et Mélisande, Bayerische Staatsoper, stage, Jetske Mijnssen, staging, stage, performance, opera, classical, music, theatre, Sophie Koch, Christian Gerhaher, Debussy

Christian Gerhaher as Golaud and Sophie Koch as Geneviève in Bayerische Staatsoper’s new production of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Photo: Wilfried Hoesl

How do you think this plays into the vocal writing? You said in another interview that it’s very in the middle – have your ideas changed throughout rehearsals?

They have changed, but only within the last eight or nine days. Originally I thought – and I still think – that they are essentially instrumental parts with words. They are in the texture of the overall sound. They have their own character, and sometimes they are peculiar. It also took me some time before I realized that the French language needs to have certain rhythms, even more than other languages. Every language has its own character, but now when I really know the words (to Pelléas) better I realize that if I try to speak them, then the character comes through the spoken rhythm and its related spoken tempo.

Also if you listen Debussy for three-and-a-half hours you have to have some variation in the sound, it can’t always be just one sound, “French” or whatever; you really do need to be earthbound for this opera. You need to find the structure and maintain the intensity and momentum, and keep some sense of direction pushing it through. You listen to recordings of Pelléas and that all of that comes through, even if the recordings are very different from each other; I can’t tell you which one are the best ones, maybe I admire the ones which are more orchestra-focused – but yes, I always thought that I have to treat those vocal parts as instrumental parts, that I have to make the balance where the words are, that they need to come through somehow. And it’s not always possible. With every opera, you have to make some compromises in balance. And having a Dutch stage director, a Finnish conductor, a German orchestra, a French singer, a German singer – it is inevitable that we all have our own national characteristics when it comes to the music, but sometimes it yields fascinating results.

Top photo: Veikko Kähkönen

Jonathan Tetelman, tenor, singer, opera, classical, vocalist, music

Jonathan Tetelman: Controlling The Intensity

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On June 19, 2024

In classical, interviews, music, opera, voice

Never mind how to get to Carnegie Hall; how do you get to The Met?

Jonathan Tetelman might give the traditional answer (practice) before adding that knowing how to work a crowd helps. The tenor, who spent time as a DJ in New York City’s busy club scene, was known for dropping beats before he dropped his turntables to devote himself to opera full-time. Critical acclaim, a multi-album deal with classical super-label Deutsche Grammophon, and oodles of love from besotted fans posting in opera groups on both sides of the Atlantic – Tetelman balances them all with flair, care, and a very clear nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic.

Born in Chile and raised in New Jersey, the tenor began his opera journey joining his grandparents on trips to numerous live cultural events in and around the Tri-state area. In 2011 he got his undergraduate degree at The Manhattan School of Music and began a graduate program at The New School of Music, Mannes College – believing he was a baritone. The move to New York nightlife at the time was the result of sheer frustration with having to move his vocal register up to where he was told it belonged. This past April Tetelman told AP’s Ronald Blum that telling people about his opera side was also a way of reminding himself it was still there. “I kept saying to people, ‘You know, I’m a DJ, but I’m actually an opera singer.’ And the more I said it, the more I was like: ’Am I really an opera singer?’”

The DJ work at a variety of celebrated NYC venues (including Webster Hall and the much-missed Pacha) taught him the all-important skill of taking an audience’s temperature at any given moment. Amidst the club mayhem, Tetelman gave himself six months to return to opera; it proved to be a wise choice. Cultivating his vocal technique as a tenor led to an opportunity to sing the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème at Fujian Grand Theatre in China, a role he would come to become known for. A performance in the opera at English National Opera followed, and then a succession of engagements. He made his Covent Garden debut with both Puccini (as Rodolfo) and Verdi (Alfredo in La traviata). In Italy he performed as Cavaradossi in Tosca and Canio in Pagliacci with Teatro Regio Torino; in France, Puccini’s Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with Opéra national de Montpellier and Cavaradossi with Opéra de Lille. Tetelman has also sung the lead in Massenet’s Werther with both the Gran Teatro Nacional de Lima (Peru) and Opera del Teatro Solis (Montevideo), and performed in Germany at the Komische Oper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Dresden Semperoper. He sang lead in Verdi’s Stiffelio with Opéra national du Rhin in 2021, with Opera-Online’s Thibault Vicq noting that “(c)e n’est pas tous les jours qu’une telle sculpture de chant se devine et se dévoile en des émotions si justes, constructives et dévastatrices.” / “It’s not every day that such a sculpture of song is revealed and expressed in such accurate, constructive and devastating emotions.”

Tetelman’s concert appearances include performances in Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and, as well as giving a number of international recitals, has worked with celebrated conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Andris Nelsons, Dan Ettinger, and Speranza Scappucci. His first album, Arias (Deutsche Grammophon, 2022), showed the breadth of his talent in terms of Italian and French repertoire; it won the Oper Magazine Awards for Best Solo Album of the Year, 2023, the same year he was honoured with an Opus Klassik Award as Break-out Artist of the Year. Tetelman’s second album, The Great Puccini (Deutsche Grammophon, 2023) features selections from nine different Puccini works, with the Prague Philharmonie and conductor Carlo Rizzi also joined, on various tracks, by sopranos Federica Lombardi, Marina Monzó, and Vida Miknevičiūtė; mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb; baritone Theodore Platt; and bass Önay Köse. The album underlines Tetelman’s reputation as a singer of considerable intensity and lyricism. In her review for BBC’s Classical Music magazine, Puccini scholar Alexandra Wilson praises Tetelman’s “nuanced approach to characterisation”, singling out album opener “Donna non vidi mai” (from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut) as “ardent and expansive, vowels strikingly warm and open, strings effectively foregrounded.”

Tetelman made his much-anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut this past spring, as Ruggero in La rondine (opposite soprano Angel Blue) and Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly (opposite soprano Asmik Grigorian), and more Puccini is in store next season, starting with Madame Butterfly at Los Angeles Opera. From there, Tetelman will be performing in a concert presentation of Tosca with the acclaimed Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Spring 2025 sees the tenor performing with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Music Director Kirill Petrenko; the orchestra’s annual residency at Baden Baden (followed by performances on home turf at the Philharmonie) sees Tetelman singing Pinkerton opposite soprano Eleonora Buratto’s Butterfly in a production by Davide Livermore. Next season also sees performances of works by Bizet, Mascagni, and Verdi, as well as the concert version of Werther at Deutsche Oper Berlin, with Tetelman in the title role opposite soprano Aigul Akhmetshina’s Charlotte.

When he spoke recently the tenor was taking a brief if deserved break. No divo this, he happily shared his thoughts on everything from future opera goals to his many past club-life lessons. The earthy combination of talent, confidence, intelligence, ambition, humility, humour, and obvious music love make Tetelman a figure worth watching. Of course he knows how to drop the beat – and raise the bar, at once, with great style.

Jonathan Tetelman, tenor, singer, opera, classical, vocalist, music

Photo: Ben Wolf

What was the very first opera you attended?

I think it was Carmen, at the old New York City Opera. I also saw Porgy and Bess when I was very young, but Carmen was the first opera that inspired me to be a singer. I was maybe 10 years old. I used to see a lot of musicals too – my grandparents would take me all the time. We saw Guys and Dolls, Smokey Joe’s Café, Annie Get Your Gun, The Lion King, Annie – dozens of things.

What initially drew you to Puccini’s music? 

I would say the initial draw was not that I necessarily liked Puccini, but that it was what I performed in my very first experience in singing a full-length opera as a professional tenor. Learning the role was the way I was hooked in – that’s what Puccini does if you pay a little bit of attention; he gives you such a lot to work with. I really think that it was luck that I had this opportunity. I actually didn’t really enjoy Puccini when I saw his operas at The Met in my younger days – I preferred Mozart. I think Puccini is really kind of a specialized type of opera; everything is happening quickly in many of his works, and you can grab onto the music easily but at the same time it’s not as flexible as other operas. I want to say also: I think the situations in his operas are very adult.

Carlo Rizzi was instrumental in expanding my own Puccini appreciation; have your colleagues provided similar “aha!” moments with his music?

Oh yes… I think probably countless times! I think every time I do his operas now, even revisiting them, I find something I missed before. You know, the opera industry now is so quick; you don’t have the time, like singers once did, to really find your way through a characterization, or to find the musical meaning that you want to put into the opera, at least until after you’re given the opportunity to do it a few times. We are on this kind of rush to everything these days, but Puccini really requires a lot of attention – and it’s not just about knowing your part, but really knowing the orchestration, the other characters, the other situations that are happening alongside your own situation. It takes a long time to develop the character, and then to develop a characterization vocally which supports that idea, and then to find the different vocal colours.

Moving Between Operas & Recitals

You noted in a past interview that vocal colour can’t be manufactured; what role do recitals play in your vocal development?

I was just talking to my wife about this the other day, and noting the difference between Jon the Recitalist versus Jon the Opera Singer, how the flexibility you have in a recital, whether with a pianist or orchestra, is really based upon what you’re doing with your voice and how you’re really transmitting the text. In a recital you don’t have a set, you don’t have costumes, you don’t have these other things; I feel like I can be so deeply connected to the music in that kind of space. Opera is about creating and exploring various situations, and to be honest, it’s a lot louder! There’s this very heavy-volume aspect of the opera versus the realities of a recital. Also, you’re really singing to the audience in a concert or recital, rather than in the opera, where you’re supposed to be singing to the ensemble because you’re telling a story and you’re projecting and conveying that particular story; you’re not singing specifically to the audience. That’s a big difference.

What kinds of things do you bring from one world to the other?

I think in opera, if you have a collaborative conductor who really knows the score and understands your interpretation and perspective, and respects your interpretation and wants to build that interpretation, then you have flexibility to bring things from your recital work. However, I don’t know if there’s so many of these types of maestros around; everybody has their own thoughts and approaches, and everyone has things that they want to get across. If you’re in a situation where you don’t have a lot of rehearsals or a lot of time to prepare with a specific conductor, then the experience is a sort of crapshoot, though a very highly calculated one. It takes time to really figure out the important parts that you really want to highlight in order to serve the characterization and the vocalization. Focus on those specific things in that moment.

Aside from Puccini you have also done (and will be doing more) Verdi – what’s the attraction for you?

I haven’t done many Verdi roles, but the ones that I’ve done, what I like is that you’re not really confined to a moment in time; you’re kind of suspending that moment with the voice. It’s a very different approach than with someone like Puccini where everything is moving forwards. Verdi is much more letting the music kind of propel the things that happen dramatically, even as his music digs into character a little deeper. I like that.

How does that love of character inform your recital work, and what kind of repertoire are you exploring – especially composers whose works you may want to do on the opera stage?

That’s a very good question! I’m in search of answers for that right now; I certainly would like to do something like Schubert’s Winterreise, as well as works by various German romantic composers, including some Brahms songs. Right now I think I have a very substantial volume to my voice, so for me to hold back is actually harder than to give more. Right now I’m figuring out how – and this is actually for Verdi too – how to control the intensity that I have naturally. I think with time and a little bit more experience those (composers) will definitely become possible.

Big Beats, Big Broadcasts

That awareness of pacing is important and I wonder how much your work as a DJ helped to develop it… 

Whether DJing or in recitals you’re making setlists and figuring out whether the crowd is into you or not – you’re listening for which tracks are the hot tracks; what introductory things you can offer to set a mood; what gets people going or cools them off. There are things that I have to do – and I know that – so in a recital, I sing some hits, and along with those I offer a few things most of the crowd may not have heard. Then I also show the progression in my own skills, and try to present things that I hope are coming in the future. There are certainly a lot of similarities (between DJing and recitals), because they’re both performance-based; one of them is just your voice and that’s a little more challenging! Singing is definitely harder than doing DJ work, but at the end of the day… the point is that you want to move people, and you want people to come out of the hall feeling something, whether they liked it or not. You want them to have some sort of emotional reaction to what you’re doing.

The Met Live in HD series brings a different kind of a challenge there; you can’t see audience reaction at all. What’s your view?

Doing these HD things, I really don’t even think about it as, like, a performance for broadcast. I’m an opera singer: I’m going to sing for the theatre; I’m going to act for the theatre. If you want to capture it on video and critique the video part of the opera, then you’re missing the point of what opera really is. Opera is really for the people that bought a ticket and sat in that seat and came for that expression on that day. There are things about The Met Live In HD that are positive, of course, but overall I think that if you want to hear an opera, you have to go to the opera house, end of story. That’s the only way that opera is going to retain its value as a live art form. Otherwise, we could just call Netflix and say, “Hey, you know, can we get some studio time for Madame Butterfly?” I mean, yeah, right – but in that case you’re not doing an opera anymore; you’re doing a movie. People don’t necessarily have to pick a lane here, but you have to know which lane is more important than the other, especially as an artist.

The Future(s)?

Jonathan Tetelman, tenor, singer, opera, classical, vocalist, music, seaside

Photo: Ben Wolf

You have named various Strauss roles as roles you’d like to do in future; why Strauss? 

I think Strauss would suit my voice very well. The writing for the tenor is an extreme challenge – it’s very demanding – but I think that my voice has a lot of the positive intensity in the tessitura that Strauss writes for. Puccini is wonderful, but I think Puccini is a lot of conversational singing. It’s a lot of “Let’s get through this and then finally there’s an aria.”

My mother used to say just that!

It’s true! There’s a lot of conversation with Puccini. With Strauss, some of the roles I’d like to do – like Apollo (from Strauss’s Daphne), I mean that’s a very intense role; you really have to be on for it. That’s just the kind of music I really like to do and hope to do. I don’t want to waste my voice; I want to be out there in the sweet vocal spot the whole time, and (Apollo) is a role that I’m really looking forward to doing, hopefully sooner than later.

I keep hearing you as The Tenor in Rosenkavalier as well…

That’s a good one too!

Returning to theatre: I’m curious what you think live art, including opera, can offer people in 2024, a moment in time when so many are staring at little screens.

Opera is really a safe haven for your mind, I think. You might be stuck in this difficult world facing really difficult things, and you can go to an opera or a symphony, and just listen and escape it all for a while, and then find your own world inside the music. That’s what’s so wonderful about going to live music and theatre: you fall into a world that doesn’t exist, but one that can exist in your mind. I think the whole experience is special.

Top photo: Ben Wolf
Brindley Sherratt, bass, English, album, Fear No More, voice, singer, opera, song, Benjamin Ealovega, Delphian

Brindley Sherratt: “There’s A Great Intimacy When It’s Just Me And A Piano”

By

On June 7, 2024

In classical, interviews, opera, piano, teaching, voice

The classical world continues to be in a state of transformation since the shutdowns forced by the coronavirus pandemic, with varied forms of transformation rippling through an array of houses, companies, and, perhaps most especially, people. I last spoke with English bass Brindley Sherratt in August 2020, when he and English tenor John Daszak were busy rehearsing an unusual, socially-distanced production of Boris Godunov directed by Barrie Kosky in Zürich. “You want to shout, ‘Opera’s not dead!‘” Sherratt commented, a needed buoy amidst the near-universal opera world gloom at the time.

Since then, Sherratt has applied that brand of encouragement to his own work. The bass’s first album of art songs, Fear No More, was released by Delphian Records in April. Recorded in 2023 at Henry Wood Hall in London, the album takes its title from a song by 20th century composer Gerald Finzi, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun”, part of the composer’s Shakespeare-connected song cycle Let Us Garlands Bring (1929-1942) and itself based on lines from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Along with Finzi and fellow British composers John Ireland, Ivor Gurney, Michael Head, and Peter Warlock the album also features the music of Schubert, Strauss, and Mussorgsky. Booklet writer John Fallas notes in his album text that “not many singers record their first recital album two decades into a successful international career” – but one listen reveals a wealth of vocal riches underlining Sherratt’s deep musical intelligence and his innate understanding of text.

In a review of Fear No More for BBC Music magazine, writer Ashutosh Khandekar notes that “Sherratt possesses that rare gift – a genuine bass voice that carries its lyrical, expressive clarity from its ringing high notes right down to a full-toned basso profundo delivered without a trace of muddiness.” Indeed, Sherratt brings light, colour, texture, and a positively operatic splendour to the album’s smart lineup. Fear No More opens with six songs by Franz Schubert, all, with the exception of the famous “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”) written for a bass voice; Sherratt’s crisp diction, oaken tone, and colourful phrasing poetically illuminate the composer’s thoughtful vocal writing. Richard Strauss’s early 20th century song “Im Spätboot” follows and is given particularly a delicious reading. Songs and Dances of Death, Mussorgsky’s mesmerizingly macabre song cycle, is performed with a touching mix of terror and humanism. Sherratt especially soars in the English-language songs; John Ireland’s 1913 song “Sea-Fever” shows Sherratt’s careful modulation and colouration of the words of poet John Masefield, offering a masterclass in the art of storytelling through song.

That instinct for storytelling has also found expression in recitals, with the singer’s former reluctance around them replaced by something approaching glee. In addition to performances at Oxford Lieder Festival and Temple Music Foundation in 2022, Sherratt made his Wigmore Hall debut this past February, and more recitals are indeed in the works. There’s also a busy 2024-2025 opera season ahead, with performances of Billy Budd in Vienna, new productions of Semele in Paris and London, and a revival of Der Rosenkavalier in Munich. Sooner than that, Sherratt is set to perform in a BBC Proms presentation this August of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with the Czech Philharmonic led by incoming Royal Opera House Music Director Jakub Hrůša; he will be singing alongside soprano Corinne Winters, mezzo soprano Bella Adimova, and tenor David Butt Philip.

A conversation with Sherratt is always a true pleasure, his easy mix of intelligence, passion, and kindness  creating a natural, good-humoured exchange of ideas and experiences.

Brindley Sherratt, Julius Drake, singer, piano, voice, recording, Henry Wood Hall, singing, Fear No More, performing arts, opera, classical, song

Brindley Sherratt recording Fear No More with pianist Julius Drake. Photo: foxbrush.co.uk

How did you choose the works on the album? You’d mentioned your love of text in a recent interview, and I wonder if that played a role. 

It was indeed that love of text, but a lot of other things as well. I felt it was an incredibly risky thing to do an album at my age, with my voice – some of that feeling was in my own mind, but there were other fears related to there not being many basses doing recordings of lieder. Also there aren’t many basses my age, with an entire operatic career, suddenly switching to song. I met Julius Drake after a performance at Covent Garden and he said, “Why don’t you come around to my house on a Saturday morning and we’ll play around with a few pieces?” I said, “I don’t know what to sing!” He said, “Come around; we’ll work through some repertoire – let’s have a go.” So we did. We spent about three hours exploring this and that.

I wanted to choose things for the album that A/ I like, and B/ I think suit my voice. As a bass, and I’ve said this before, songs and recitals are like wearing your sibling’s hand-me-downs: you have to transpose down and adjust everything. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to include Schubert. As for Strauss: there are three or four songs that wrote specifically for the guy who first sang them (Paul Knüpfer), a bass who went on to be a famous Baron Ochs in Rosenkavalier, so I thought “Im Spätboot” was a good start. I’d already done some other Strauss songs with an orchestra –  and I do love his writing so much.

Likewise the Mussorgsky cycle; I’d done Songs and Dances of Death with an orchestra two or three times, and I thought, gosh I’d love to do this with piano. Julius said, “Why don’t we just put them on the record?” I also thought I would like to do something in my own language and then it became a case of finding things I like.

There’s something extra special about the English songs – why these ones in particular?

When I was a student decades ago and had just started to sing – I was a trumpet player and switched to singing – I remember learning a few songs, and thinking, well, I’m a singer so of course I should sing songs. One of them was Finzi’s “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” – I loved it ever since, but never had the chance to sing it because I’ve never done recitals. There’s something about this work, after all these years, that I still connect with, so I knew I had to include it on the album. For other songs, I had help: Sarah Connolly introduced me to “By A Bierside” (Ivor Gurney) – she said she thought it would suit me because it’s quite dramatic; Roderick Williams was a very big help also. He really knows his repertoire! I said to him, “Please help me out? Give me pointers as to what would suit me since you know my voice.” He’s been a very big source of information with the English song material. It’s like the TV show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” with contestants using a lifeline to call a friend and help them with a question – I phoned a friend, or rather several friends, who had done this repertoire and said “Hey, hello!”

On Being Pushed

Tell me more about your creative connection with Julius Drake – to what extent was he pianist, coach, mentor, critic… ?

He played all of those roles at some point – all of them. He kept saying, “Brin, you can do this” throughout. I would say, “Oh, I can’t sing this stuff, It’s too this, it’s too that.” And he said, “Come on, let’s keep going.” He would literally push me through the songs and offer ideas for others, and I would look at them and say, “Nah, don’t want that, it’s too boring” or “Maybe?” – and he was there to urge me on.

Brindley Sherratt, Julius Drake, singer, piano, voice, recording, Henry Wood Hall, singing, Fear No More, performing arts, opera, classical, song

Brindley Sherratt recording Fear No More with collaborative pianist Julius Drake. Photo: foxbrush.co.uk

Did this form of coaching happen with your recitals as well?

Oh yes! Having not done a recital for 20-something years or more, there I was suddenly doing two recitals on two consecutive nights. Whilst we were preparing Julius would say things like “Not like that, we need more colour here.” I’d try something else and say, “Is that right?” And he’d say, “Nah, not right. Try something else.” We’d try this and that, and in that process I discovered a whole softer colour to my sound, one I didn’t know I could do. I was able to play around a lot more as a result, and Julius would push me: “Bring that sound”, “We need to bring this text out here”, “That was too slow”, “That was too fast”,“That was close to being chamber music!” The process was new to me.

With opera, it’s just such a huge scale, and sometimes you’ll have a conductor who will coach, like Tony Pappano – he gives loads of notes like “Just sing this way”, “Try it that way” and I love that approach – but opera is still this big long process. You’re on stage, you have other things and people to add and interact with. Also, I might have said this already in another interview: I prefer my audiences in the dark about 80 feet away with a symphony orchestra in-between. The kind of intimacy chamber music demands was the thing that I feared most, especially in terms of doing recitals; it also became the thing I enjoyed the most. There’s a great intimacy when it’s just me and a piano. This whole process has been a revelation.

Does that include your recital work?

Initially I was worried about those. I thought, “What if nobody comes?” Well, I went out and there were big crowds who gave big cheers and I thought, “Oh, this is great!” At Wigmore Hall in February the place was heaving with people. All the students I worked with were there along with every bass in the country, including John Tomlinson. I found it overwhelming, though it also made me think that maybe I’m okay at this stuff; I need to trust that feeling.

Do you think recitals and art songs have made you a better opera singer?

I think so, yes. I was doing Rocco in Fidelio (in Munich) this year, and Gurnemanz a year or more ago, and I found I used a lot of soft colours which I would have not have used before. Those softer colours are really important, especially to basses, as you know. I feel much more rounded as a singer, and the songs (on the album) were great for that kind of work.

Keeping The Voice “As Fresh As Possible”

What have you learned about your voice through the last decade or so?

There was a stage I went through actually about eight or ten years ago where I wanted to make a big noise. At one point I thought, “I don’t think I’m singing healthily.” Going back to Gurnemanz, when I was first learning that part years back I was listening to Gottlob Frick, who is my favourite German bassist of all. He was 68 when he recorded Parsifal; he came out of retirement to do it. Having had a long career singing the heaviest roles, the Hagens and the Hundings, over and over and over again, here he is at 68 – when really the voice should be starting to wear a bit – and my God, he sounds so good, so vulnerable – it’s just sublime, beautiful singing. When I heard it I thought: I want to be able to do that.

It was while I was singing I was singing Ochs at Glyndebourne (2018) that I found a much more, what’s the word, a more contained and less fat kind of sound; I purposely took my voice down a little bit and worked. That moment was the foundation, as it were, because when I started to learn and sing songs, I realized that I want to be able to sing “Some Enchanted Evening” and have it be beautiful – that, or Winterreise, or Finzi’s “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun”. I want people to say, “That’s a beautiful voice” and not “That’s a ragged old voice.” So I think the combination of songs and opera is important to keep the voice as fresh as possible at my age.

What role does teaching play?

I coach a lot of young basses, bass baritones too, and for so many of them the pressure is on in their 20s in terms of making a career, and so they all want to sound as loud as possible. What happens is they go into a young artists program and they’re on stage with guys who really know what they’re doing, but they have to match it, or feel like they do, so they try to make their voice big before it’s kind of found its way. There are so few roles for young low voices – it’s a lot of Second Old Man or Third Gatekeeper – but young artists feel forced to make big sounds so early on, and I’m always saying to them now, “Learn songs, sing songs; learn a few cycles; learn Handel, and more Handel; listen to various artists.” I think you need to have that balance, and the confidence too – we definitely need to have that!

Brindley Sherratt, bass, English, album, Fear No More, voice, singer, opera, song, Benjamin Ealovega, Delphian

Photo: Benjamin Ealovega

A second album?

Which songs might be in the future for you, on record or live in recital?

I think everyone wants to sing Winterreise, and I admit to being one of them! It’s an incredibly intimidating cycle but I find it so enchanting; I love listening to it and I love singing it. I’d want to do it in recital a few times before I went anywhere even near a recording studio. So that’s a possibility. I’ve also been thinking I would like to do a disc of songs in my mother tongue, and at the moment I’m leaning towards an album of English song; I asked Ryan Wigglesworth if he would write me something, and he’s up for that. Robert Lloyd said to me many years ago, “Make sure you do a song recital once a year; It’s so easy to just bellow” – it’s so true.

I was amazed in the recitals to note that after I’d sung a few phrases that are quiet and soft, I could sense everyone leaning in and really listening – it was just lovely! I never would have thought of having that kind of closeness with an audience, but it’s been amazing, and I definitely look forward to more moments like that.

Top photo: Benjamin Ealovega
Ludovic Tezier, baritone, opera, singer, classical, French

Ludovic Tézier On Singing Verdi, Working With Jonas Kaufmann, & Why ‘Okay’ Is “Not Enough.”

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On March 11, 2024

In classical, interviews, music, opera, Paris, voice

To be called “the leading Verdi baritone on the global stage for the best part of a decade” (by Gramophone Magazine’s Hugo Shirley) is one thing; to be an earthy, energetic conversationalist is quite another. Ludovic Tézier manages both, and then some. To state he is a committed Verdi singer is putting things mildly. Currently performing at Paris’s Opéra Bastille in the title role of Simon Boccanegra, the French baritone has sung a who’s who of roles by the Italian master; Rigoletto, Macbeth, Posa (Don Carlo), Ford (Falstaff), Don Carlo di Varga (La forza del destino), Renato (Un ballo in maschera) , and Giorgio Germont (La traviata) are all part of his regular repertoire. Tézier’s 2021 solo album of Verdi arias, recorded with Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and conductor Frédéric Chaslin and released by Sony Classical, won a Gramophone Award for Best Voice & Ensemble Recording. Gramophone’s Shirley called it “surely the finest Verdi recital – from any voice type – to have appeared for several years, if not a decade.”

As well as being a regular at Opéra National de Paris, Tézier has appeared on the stages of Teatro Alla Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro Real (Madrid), Liceu Barcelona, Royal Opera Opera Covent Garden, and The Metropolitan Opera (New York), to name a few. He has also performed at a variety of festivals including those in Verona, Savonlinna, Aix-en-Provence, the Chorégies d’Orange, Glyndebourne, and Baden-Baden as well as both the Easter and summer festivals in Salzburg. He has sung the titles roles in in Hamlet, Eugene Onegin and Don Giovanni, as well as Yeletsky (Pique Dame), Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Athanaël (Thaïs), and Wagner roles Amfortas (Parsifal) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (Tannhäuser), and given both recitals and masterclasses. Later this year he’ll be a soloist in a performance of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem alongside soprano Pretty Yende in a concert featuring the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Aziz Shokhakimov as part of the annual Festival de Saint-Denis. In May he will perform another signature role, Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, in a new production by Kornél Mundruczó at Bayerische Staatsoper.

Set to join him for part of that run is tenor Jonas Kaufmann (as Mario Cavaradossi), a colleague with whom Tézier shares a warm and lively association, live onstage and through a number of recordings. Their 2022 Sony Classical album Insieme: Opera Duets, with Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under conductor Antonio Pappano, features the music of Puccini, Ponchielli, and Verdi, and garnered widespread praise, with The Financial Times‘ Richard Fairman calling it “a recital of distinction.” The pair will be performing selections from the album this October in Naples in a concert with Orchestra of Teatro di San Carlo and conductor Jochen Rieder.

Simon Boccanegra, Ludovic Teziér, baritone, Verdi, opera, performance, Opéra national de Paris, Calixto Bieito, classical, music, arts, culture, France, Paris

Ludovic Tézier as Simon Boccanegra at Opéra Bastille, 2018. Photo: Agathe Poupeney / Opéra national de Paris

More immediate is Simon Boccanegra at Opéra Bastille. Its heavy three acts (plus prologue) explore the vagaries of political intrigue, romantic jealousy, and ultimately, forgiveness in friendships and families alike. Calixto Bieito’s production, premiered in late 2018 and currently enjoying a revival, uses sharply contrasting textures and equally striking video projections to convey the tormented psychology of its titular hero. Tézier is simultaneously authoritative and sensitive, making smart use of small gestures and facial expressions to offer a complex portrayal of a damaged man navigating painful inner and outer realities.  The character’s reunion with his long-lost daughter Maria (Nicole Car) is especially moving, with the baritone wide-eyed if awkward, his Simon clearly yearning to embrace but utterly incapacitated. A physicality that might be used for care is made into more of a cave, yawning, empty, alone. Vocally he is broad one moment, intimate the next; colourful and textured, with just the right amount of shading, thickly applied or gossamer-delicate; flexible but not showy; legato but not engulfing; emotion expressed not via volume but through careful, considered control. Tézier possesses an artistry of the very highest calibre –immediate, human, utterly unforgettable.

Our exchange one recent rainy afternoon in Paris was conducted amidst intermittent announcements on the loudspeakers laced throughout Opéra Bastille’s labyrinthine backstage area. Tézier offered equal parts attentiveness, intelligence, passion, and sensitivity, a mirror of the qualities he brings to his performances, whether live or recorded.  We began by discussing one of his most memorable roles, as the seemingly-villainous brother in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, a role he has been rightly praised for and remains burned into the memory of those who experienced his performance at The Met in 2011.

How do you see a character like Donizetti’s Enrico – is he a villain to you, or something more?

He isn’t really a villain – he feels like he’s doing his duty, keeping things around the family and its preservation. He wants to save his family – if you think about (Verdi’s) Germont it’s the same thing: he’s on duty; he’s protecting his son; he has to do a job to preserve his family and name.

You commented in an interview about Germont and Rigoletto and how singing them relates to age, experience and wisdom, which brought to mind the industry casting younger and younger.

I think of age as fruit. You have to pick it at a certain age, and not take the fruit that’s still green – you have to wait to pick those pieces. When you do a character too early you might have the voice to do it, but will you … give it the way you could give it ten years later? Plus knowing there are plenty of different parts, why do the biggest, deepest, most complex parts from the early beginning? Just because you sound more or less as you should sound for it? Opera is much more about telling the story in a certain way. Of course it’s about singing too. But if you’re not able to be the character and actually be believed within that character you’re better to do another one – there are plenty to choose.

Most of the characters you should begin with are lightweight, they are young and corresponding to what you are going through when you’re 28-30. In my case being a father made me really understand these Verdi roles. To make an image of fatherhood is one thing, but being one is different, I can tell you. I’d rather be number one in Mozart than number ten in Verdi. Doing those other roles helps you to be good at singing Verdi. Every colour you pick up in Mozart and Donizetti you will use later in Verdi – and in dramatic singing. It’s not just decibels, it’s about preserving your instrument, developing those colours and accents you may expect for Verdi, and having the freshness to give the good high notes and beautiful legato. That’s, in a nutshell, where you put a life story. And you can’t fake it; it isn’t rewarding for you in any way. You can’t give what you should be giving within the part.

You mentioned in a past interview that you’d love to do more Mozart, which reminded me of something Luca Pisaroni said years ago, that Mozart is a massage for the voice…

He is one of my rare brothers in the job. Luca is one of the best artists onstage I’ve ever met – there are only a few that still impress me, and he is one of them, because he is living the music, living the opera. He’s giving the music 100%. Some of the times Luca and I have worked together – not enough for my taste – we’ve done Don Giovanni and Leporello, and it is fresh like a new flower every time, growing all along and renewed every night – because we are growing together. You never know what may come right after you deliver your line, but you can be sure it is true, it isn’t a xerox at every performance…

It shouldn’t be a xerox!

No! That’s not opera! We are building on the stage a beautiful picture, like paintings, except we are life. We are not in the Louvre or the Met Museum – I love them both, by the way – but the paintings we create are moving so they are not the same, not the same at all every performance…

… and the light will change on those ‘paintings’ so the picture will change…

Yes, and that’s the beauty of it.

So which Mozart roles do you want to do now?

Every role!

I really want to see your Almaviva live.

Ah yes! I’ve done it – that a role needs either a young baritone, and I’ve done it at that time in my life, or a man of my age now, because after 40 men are kind of set in their habits…

There’s also the aspect of authority, and people questioning it…

That’s right.

… which really points up the subversive nature of the Beaumarchais play.

Precisely.

But the Verdi roles, like Simon Boccanegra?

I love this role so, so much. Oh my goodness, I can’t even tell you how much.

How has it changed for you, since you’ve done it a lot now?

Once you begin a part like I did here, in the same production six years ago already, the part is like every part, it is growing into your brain and your soul in a private way – it is there, developing. When you put the score on the table again to really examine it, it is different because you are different, because the part has developed independently and of course the voice has changed in six years. I have to find another way to express what’s in the part now. I don’t know quite what the connection is between the voice, the development of the voice, and the part itself – I am not sure what nourishes what. It might be the part that asks you for more colour or the voice that has more possibility. Somehow it’s all a dialogue.

So you internalize the part in your body, and  it returns, like muscle memory?

Yes, that’s true.

… but it changes at the same time?

Yes, because the body is changing. It’s like you remember and think back, “How did I do that mountain-climb when I was young?” The body remembers that you completed that activity. Sometimes you have to jump into a part you’ve not done for years – and voila, you know it, and the body knows it like an instinctual animal knows how to handle a dangerous situation, which is amazing. When you have more time to learn it, then you can take what your body remembers and try to make it in another way, into something finer, polished, deep.

Something you can translate into the outer world?

Yes, but to control the effect that you have on the public … that is so independent of everything. You try to give your best; sometimes it works, sometimes not. Sometimes it was great, sometimes not. You try to not do the same thing twice but to put yourself in the same state of mind, and it may not work… c’est la vie. Of course we are working with great passion on our voice but remember to be able to sing these beautiful parts is a present. So somehow we have to give it back to somebody and to the public for sure. It’s sort of a duty, because all truly great singers want to be able to get into this intimacy with composers like Verdi and Wagner. It is good to try to make people… sense what the composer wanted to tell or express, and when it works, it’s one of the greatest moments.

How much of this translates into your masterclasses? Conveying all of this to students must be a challenge.

Oh definitely. It’s a case of, if you want to express what I’m aiming at and what I wish you to aim for, then the basis is to have a very good technique and flexibility. You have to build that technique and have that ground on which you can find the emotion and voice. If you don’t have this sort of grounding… I don’t want to be in a room where I see people sweating to be loud. It’s why we have to build a very solid foundation, to be able to give the impression that we are actually doing what we do, easily. That makes the public much more comfortable and open-minded – open-souled, if I can say that. They can receive what you have to give. And never forget what we are doing makes a direct connection with the old form of Greek theatre. I think we should always aim for that kind of authenticity, and not forget it, and not be a narcissist thinking, ‘Am I good-sounding?’ Sure, it’s a good voice, but the expression isn’t there.

I remember once an artist was singing one night when I was in a hotel. This old guy was so skillful, he was giving the text and theatrics, but that was it. It was a nice voice, but … especially with Verdi, when you sing it nicely, it’s not nice. It must be beautiful, it must be deep – and the beauty is not always defined as vocal perfection. The beauty of a “perfect” face is not nice! Listen to “My Way” with Sinatra and another singer and you will know the difference. Sinatra has a beautiful voice but most of all he’s a great singer, a complete singer – the greatest tenor for me. You understand every word, on every level. Then you hear people just singing the words, not the music. They know the melody, but what makes it an international standard? Not the nice melody. Some may sing the nice melodies and say, “okay, it’s enough” – no. ‘Okay’ is not enough.

It seems like this is a big part of what informs your work with Jonas Kaufmann.

Very much so. When Jonas is entering the stage, he isn’t entering because it is written or because the director has called him on; he’s entering because he has something to do as an artist. That makes a hell of a difference. He isn’t only a singer; he’s an everything.

… which encapsulates what opera is about: voice, theatre, visuals.

That’s why we love it. I never could choose between the visual, the sound, the theatre.

Alexander Neef once remarked to me that he thinks opera is the most complete art form because of its integrating these elements. 

I can’t really say, it might be quite arrogant of me, but… maybe?

Do you think there’s a dwindling audience for this kind of artistic understanding?

I think there are still sensing it, and people who want this, and that’s what we need. I don’t ask people to understand why one emotion is there; I want them to listen, to feel, to say, “Wow, this is special to me.” And that’s it. Our job is to understand, to find the keys, but the public? I don’t ask them to understand – on the contrary. They don’t need to know all the tricks; knowing every single thing can kill the magic. Just listen; feel the emotion. It’s the best way to spend three hours.

Top photo: Cassandra Berthon
Adriana Gonzalez, soprano, singer, voice, opera, classical, Operalia

Adriana González: “Give Yourself Time And Space”

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On May 17, 2022

In classical, COVID19, Europe, interviewing, interviews, music, opera, voice

The extent to which concert and opera-going habits have changed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic is slowly becoming known. Recent announcements suggest that many organizations are playing it safe (or what they perceive as safe) in offering reams of favored classical chestnuts for 2022-2023 seasons in order to entice audiences, both old and new, back into the concert halls and opera houses. Any semblance of challenge is being left largely within the parameters of individual approaches – an interesting twist on “make your own fun”, perhaps – but one might still wish such notions (challenge, individual thought, critical thinking) hold some form of value in the post-pandemic classical landscape. I would like to believe that the idea of challenge – and its first cousin, curiosity – do indeed matter, and that whatever choices are (or be perceived as) over-cautious within future programming might be somehow reconfigured in order to open the door to more careful, contextualized listening / live experiences. As someone fascinated by how sounds transmit both verbal and non-verbal meaning, it has become a natural, near-unconscious habit to listen not passively but passionately. My ears, as I remarked to someone recently, have grown teeth; everything is evaluated with an intense energy and attention to detail. Developing incisive listening (and seeing, and evaluating) skill, however unconsciously, does not, despite being a music writer, always bring benefits; such habit is now perceived in some quarters as churlishness, over-criticism, over-analysis, even (heaven forbid), ingratitude (“You should be grateful live music is back at all!”). Yet this aural and visual approach, one now so useful amidst so many programming announcements, is not to be turned off or hidden, but rather, used in the interests of feeding curiosity, furthering inquiry, broadening the field of discovery.

Adriana Gonzalez, Iñaki Encina Oyón, melodies, Dussaut, Covatti, album, recording, piano, French, Audax, voice, vocalSo what a treat it was, to come across the album Mélodies (Audax, 2020) by soprano Adriana González and Basque pianist/conductor Iñaki Encina Oyón earlier this year. Featuring the largely-unknown songs of French composers Robert Dussaut (1896-1969) and Hélène Covatti (1910-2005), the album is a stellar showcase of González’s immense vocal talents, conveying a strong sense of the Guatemala-born soprano’s immense gift in integrating sensitive interpretation and smart technical approach; comparisons to the late Welsh soprano Margaret Price (1941-2011) come to mind, and have been rightly noted. The natural chemistry between González and Oyón share is evident through album’s 22 tracks, with the soprano’s coloration, phrasing, and textures matched by the pianist’s poetic tempos, touch, and dynamism, creating a luscious showcase of the hauntingly beautiful writing of each of the respective composers. “Adieux à l’étranger“ (1922) is a wistful work, Dussaut’s writing recalling the lyrical qualities of Massenet, while Covatti’s “Berceuse” shows clear connections to Ravel and De Falla; in each, González’s skillfully modulates voice and dynamics with and around Oyón’s delicate, intuitive playing. Mélodies is a very rewarding, very captivating listen, one that provides a wonderful introduction to both the composers and to Gonzalez’s larger talents, tantalizingly hinting at the explosive intensity which she so ably channels in live performance.

Winner of the First and Zarzuela Prizes at the Operalia competition in 2019, González has performed with Oper Frankfurt, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Opéra de Toulon, Opéra national de Lorraine, Opera Naţională Română Timişoara. Most recently she made her American debut with Houston Grand Opera, singing the role of Juliette in Gounod’s opera Roméo et Juliette opposite tenor Michael Spyres. This month sees Gonzalez perform Verdi’s Requiem in Portugal, a work she will perform again later this year with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; other roles next season include Michaela in Carmen (with Dutch National Opera, Paris Opera, and with Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège) and as Echo in Gluck’s Écho et Narcisse with Opéra Royal, Versailles. Having become a member of the Atelier Lyrique of the Paris Opera in 2014, González has developed a wide repertoire, one that hews to her rich if highly flexible lyric soprano style, with an emphasis on Mozart, Rossini, and Puccini so far. That doesn’t mean she isn’t prepared to expand her fach, but she does it with maximum awareness of her instrument – its demands, its realities, the stamina required and the ways it can be fostered with grace and sensitivity, all whilst simultaneously exercising a clear artistic curiosity. González’s recital with Oyón earlier this year in Dijon featured music from her Dussaut/Covatti album, as well as music by Enrique Granados (1867-1916), Fernando Obradors (1897-1945), Frederic Mompou (1893-1987), as well as songs from her recent album, Albéniz: Complete Songs (Audax), a 30-track exploration of the Spanish composer’s varied vocal oeuvre. Released last October and rightly nominated for an 2022 International Classical Music Award (ICMA), the album is a seamless integration of chemistry, technique, and artistry with González again delivering a stunning display of her immense vocality and feeling for the art of song.

Adriana González, Iñaki Encina Oyón, Albeniz. album, recording, piano, Spanish, Audax, voice, vocal, songsAs I learned when we spoke recently, González, while highly aware of her powerful, affecting sound, is also aware of her desire to stretch, explore, and cultivate her talent creatively, with a firm hold of context at every step. We started off discussing what it was like to quickly step into the role of Liù for a performance of Turandot in Houston, as she was concurrently performing Juliette. Stress, what stress? González seems too focused a performer to let nerves ever get the best of her, and her recollection of the experience was coloured more by a mix off excitement, disbelief, and gratitude than any dregs of self-doubt. González is as much earthy as she is studious, and that intensity I referenced earlier is, as ever, always in the service of a knowing approach to craft. Such a combination of ingredients makes for a meal that satisfies toothsome ears, and for a very rewarding form of listening amidst post-pandemic times.

When I learned about your quickly stepping into the role of Liù I reviewed my 2019 conversation with conductor Carlo Rizzi about Turandot, who called that character the heart of the opera. What was it like to step into that world so quickly?

Musically it was quite something – but I didn’t do the staging. They had me singing from the side and had an actor doing the staging tagging because Robert Wilson’s Turandot is very precise in terms of movements. The actress didn’t know the music really well, so (the production team) were talking to her through an earpiece and she had someone telling her, “Walk here, do this, do that, step left, one step back – no you stepped too far” – for her I can’t imagine what it was like. For me of course Liù is such a different vocality from Juliette, it was like, “Okay, go for it!” In Roméo et Juliette I thought, “Keep it proper, it’s French” and with Puccini, well, it’s home very much for me vocally, but I hadn’t sung Liù since 2019 and in doing it recently I thought, “Oh my voice has really grown, it’s changed, this feels different” – so that was wonderful. And the conductor, Eun Sun Kim, is amazing; every entrance was so clear, she would be waiting attentively at other moments; she knows the text of everything. She was there every step. It was like, “I know my part but I’m glad you do too!”

You said in a past interview that in preparing for a role you go over the vowel sounds and various details of vocalizing. What has it been like for you to examine the sounds within the text – has your process changed? I’m thinking here specifically of your doing Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in Paris in 2019.

Iolanta was difficult because I don’t speak Russian and it was a secondary role – it was Brigitta, one of her nurses, and it was one of the contracts I did from the studio years in Paris. I had to do it but otherwise, I would be very skeptical to choose a role in an opera which is written in a language I don’t speak, because I find you really need to learn the language, you need to understand the cultural context and background from which the words originate. French is great for me: I know all the expressions; I find humour. When you see the phrases in opera, used in day to day, you can react better, just from an acting point of view –you can react better and propose things knowing the meaning of the text, from a technical and vocal technique point of view. You need to know the meaning of the word to know what kind of colour and what kind of nuance works also. For example, if you’re saying “I’m hesitating” then you don’t want to say “hesitating” or the feeling it implies so beautifully, it’s a feeling that doesn’t reflect something good – maybe it can be a good thing in the long run, but in the moment hesitation is doubt, it’s a feeling of unbalanced things. This is a lot of the thought process – you need to find a way of expressing that feeling clearly. And then of course we singers, we do these sounds and feelings through vowels, not through consonants specifically, so if you have vowel sounds, you need to make them a bit more acid if you are expressing a certain feeling, and you need to do it in a way so the whole experience of the word comes through. That’s the background we singers need to do even years before we start, just looking at the role and singing the role, because it’s muscular training you have to do to find those colours, and so you don’t get in trouble. You can’t do colours and really go for it with just your acting instinct. You have to take care of yourself, so that when you do those colours you’re not hurting your instruments. It’s a balance.

When I spoke with Etienne Dupuis earlier this year, he said how doing Don Carlos opened the door to many new things he hadn’t experienced singing it prior in Italian, but I wonder about the “acid sounds” – how much might such a vocal choice disturb perceptions of beauty in opera? If you’re concerned about making the expected “beautiful” sound you risk flattening the drama into this heterogeneous sonic mass, but committing to the sounds you describe means risking the way you – and your voice – are perceived by those who hold fast to notions of ‘the beautiful’ as paramount.

Tamara Wilson, who is amazing Turandot, dares to go piano, and it’s in those moments where you can really see Turandot’s vulnerability – and hearing that approach changes absolutely everything. It’s no longer this sort of scream-and-fight cliché– her performance has this power and this contrast, but also has length: the role is long enough that she can showcase all the colours she has. For some singers it is sometimes difficult. I did four years of young artist programs, and it was through that experience that I learned short roles can be just as hard; in a long role you have to pace yourself –when to do what –you have this amazing amount of time to showcase your whole palette. But with a short role, it’s just that little bit of time – I did a small role in Rigoletto, for instance – in which you can’t show a lot, but definitely when you have a longer role you make decisions on how to showcase the beauty but also the anguish, because opera is very much about real life. There are sad moments –you want to make people cry and think about beauty – but it also has to be real emotion. It can’t be beautiful all the time; there has to be a balance between the elements. There has to be a balance between where and how you choose the moments to really go for pain, and all else.

This speaks to theatre, does it not? To the power of theatre?

Yes!

Theatre is firmly part of what opera is, and indeed these operas – Turandot is Carlo Gozzi via Friedrich Schiller, by way of Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni; Roméo et Juliette is Shakespeare by way of Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. Do you, alongside opera recordings, examine the plays and/or performances of plays as part of your preparation?

I did read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and I also heard an audio book performance of it, to hear the inflections of the language, and to hear how the pain of certain scenes was expressed through the words – some of those inflections of text were so powerful. I also listened because of (curiosity around) the stage movement; the Houston production has specific stage movement; we had to train to do and we rehearsed, but I find if the emotion and intention are clear, then that helps you, no matter how you move, no matter the specifics. The intention of the action is there in the background. I definitely went through that process and got a good feeling: “Okay this is a painful moment” Also it was good to compare Shakespeare to what Gounod took for his final libretto – it’s very different. There are varying characters who are emphasized or not emphasized, and the family feud (in Gounod) is in the background compared to what Shakespeare presents. Also I couldn’t help but notice Juliet’s cheekiness – she’s very cheeky in Shakespeare; Gounod’s Juliette is more fragile and sentimental.

How much was working with Michael Spyres (as Roméo) an aid to the process?

From the first day Michael and I clicked really well. I’m a World Youth Choir baby – I did that really young, that’s what sort of got me to Europe – and I had always heard about Michael Spyres, as he was also in that choir as a kid. We’d heard of each other too – all of our friends know each other but we hadn’t actually met ourselves, but then we did and it was like, “You! Yes, you!” We clicked immediately – it was a wonderful meeting. Working with him was fabulous. He’s such a professional, he knows how to manage his instrument and be expressive, and he’s so much about the text also. It was a beautiful and natural collaboration. Even outside of the duos, he’s someone who really listens to what you’re doing – I listen to what he’s doing also. The first time we did a run-through, we did it one way; the second time was comp different because we were listening to each other so intently, so we felt good to make changes already. He’s a wonderful colleague. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful Roméo. Even without verbal language, it is so clear we are so much on the same page.

Adriana Gonzalez, soprano, singer, opera, classical, stage, Houston Grand Opera, Michael Spyres, Romeo et Juliette, Gounod, romantic, chemistry, duet

Michael Spyres and Adriana González in Romeo and Juliet at Houston Grand Opera. Photo by Lynn Lane.

Singers often emphasize chemistry – either it’s there or it isn’t. That’s important in a romantic opera, I should think… ?

It is important! It’s also a thing connected to life experiences. Talking with Michael, we’ve shared a lot of life experience, him and the countries he’d lived in, and me from Guatemala. Certain experiences create a certain way of thinking. Even if we grew up in different countries, he’ll say something about what he saw and I’ll say, “Hey, that happens in my country too!” So the life experiences are shared and create the way you behave and interact. That was also something that added to our work relationship.

And somehow the details, as you say, fall away. When you are doing this kind of project you can still come from your different places with all the related cultural backgrounds, but the meeting point somehow still exists, and that meeting happens in opera, and on record. Your album of Dussaut-Covatti is a good example, though I confess I hadn’t heard of the composers before hearing it…

That’s totally normal!

I don’t feel so bad now…

Don’t feel bad, seriously!

When you refer to chemistry, that is something definitely evident with your pianist, Iñaki Encina Oyón, through these songs; why make an album of their work?

I’m glad the complicity Iñaki and I have comes through. Now why do I say it’s normal not to know these composers? Because they are very unknown! The project came out of a very personal project for Iñaki and myself; the two composers, Dussaut and Covatti, are the parents of Iñaki’s piano teacher from Toulouse. When he left Spain he studied piano and conducting in Toulouse, and his piano teacher was the pianist Thérèse Dussaut (b. 1939), daughter of Hélène Covatti and Robert Dussaut. Thérèse doesn’t have children and she is getting older, and at the time she said to him, “Hey you know a lot of singers, why don’t you take my parents’ music and see what you can do with it?” Iñaki has such a curious brain, he loves to read and discover old composers, he digs for music all day, and one day he said, “Adriana let’s sight-read this.” The songs fit my voice so perfectly – the way it’s written was perfect with the tessitura and with the French. We went on to have a lot of fun performing them in recital. One day we decided to record them because otherwise, we worried they’d be lost to history – most were manuscripts, so we made a new edition of the scores, and recorded the album. The composers have so many other works – and Robert Dussaut was awarded the Grand Prix De Rome, the biggest composition prize you can win in France, he got it back in 1924 – it’s a prize Gounod won also; although Gounod only got it the second time he applied (in 1839, for the cantata Fernand), and Dussaut won it the first time around. It was music that had also not been done, and so it was wonderful to not be compared to anyone else and do something not done ten-thousand times already. The record label, Audax, is also independent, and their slogan is “Stay Curious” – they basically do unknown works, mainly Baroque and instrumental things, but are slowly taking on voice also.

As to Iñaki, that starts World Youth Choir also, like Michael. In 2012 Iñaki was the Assistant Conductor of the project and I was a choir person who did a solo, which I auditioned for. He heard me and said, “Where do you come from? What is this voice? Where did you train?” I said, “I want to sing Mimi!” I was 18 or 19 years old, and he said, “You know there’s the opera studios…” He informed me of all of these programs and how things work in Europe. I’d never left Guatemala – and a year later he invited me to Paris to do a production with him and invited the director of the Paris opera studio with whom he’s very good friends – Christian Schirm – and they got me the audition for the Paris casting people. It turns out they needed a Zerlina for the studio and took me in and asked me subsequently to stay in the program. And, all of that happened because of Iñaki, and his selflessness in wanting to help young talent. So I really owe him everything, he’s a wonderful friend and travels where I am singing – he came from Paris to Houston to see my Juliette debut, for instance. He’s really a close friend. So when you say the chemistry comes through on the album, that is really a wonderful compliment! We worked so hard on that album, and to express what’s written in the scores.

And now you’re shifting gears entirely, to Verdi’s Requiem. How do you prepare for something like this, especially something you’ll be performing across different continents?

When I accepted I thought, wait, should I have taken a longer pause between things? But it’s definitely something I did not want to turn down – the first one in Portugal at the end of May came as a proposal from Lorenzo Viotti. His sister Marina Viotti is doing the mezzo solo and she is one of my best friends. I thought, I’m not missing this opportunity to perform with my friend, and especially when it’s a first time for both of us! And also with her brother, I thought, really I can’t say no to this – so I will try to pace myself.

For singers, as a bit of context here, we are athletes, so we have to train vocally how we’ll use our muscles for the different types of writing from different types of composers. Gounod is different, specifically Juliette, to Verdi anything, of course. The wonderful thing is that the Verdi Requiem, if you look at the score, has many piani written and you have to keep a more slim position, a certain sort of throat opening, let’s say it that way – you can’t go full throttle, and doing a role like Juliette has helped keep that youth in the voice. Also having done a rebel kind of a Juliette has helped build the stamina for doing the Verdi Requiem, even with such different writing styles. I’ve learned the whole of the music and I’ll have a week to switch over from the Gounod to the Verdi – it’ll be a lot of training over that week. I’m slowly adapting my muscles and stretching them in a different way so I’ll be prepared to do Verdi. It’s such an iconic piece, and there’s been lots of reading, lots of analyzing, considering how to phrase the music – how to place this or that vowel; how to breathe in this place or that; how to make the larynx go into position so I can get a specific colour at a certain point –and how to get there fresh, so I can achieve that sound needed at the end of the Requiem but still have this sound of youth for the beautiful phrases at the very beginning.

Stamina is the right word  – but it’s a different kind of stamina required for Verdi’s work rather than Gounod’s. How might this experience and the preparation for it carry over into future roles?

It takes a lot – but you do think about it: what decisions to make when; what roles to take on; what do I want to do in the next five years. My voice will go into Verdi repertoire. I want to still enjoy the roles I’m doing now – Mimi, Liù, the Contessa, Fiordiligi. A Desdemona in the middle would be wonderful too…

That’s a role I’d love to hear you do.

It’s one I’m really looking forward to doing – and I am going in that direction, slowly. It is where my voice is headed – but you need to know how to pace yourself. In past times singers would do 60 shows a year for one role; now it’s like, we do 4 shows… and, can we do more, please? It takes so much time and effort and knowledge and, again, time… to prepare a role and then you do 4 shows, and you think, well, I hope I get to do this more!

That’s why the covid era was so devastating; singers trained five years out for roles in operas that were cancelled or moved. I want to believe the industry learned something from that time, but I’m not so sure… what’s your take?

It’s definitely been a time that’s made us think slower, so we were not just jumping around from one thing to another without a thought. It’s been a reminder of the importance of taking the time to do your things with dedication – dedicating time to the music, time and energy the music deserves, not jumping from one thing to another, but just focusing on one thing. Do that one thing wonderfully, then close the book, turn the page, go to the next thing. It’s very important to be this deliberate, and it’s the key for a long career also, to do one thing at a time, and to focus on it, and give yourself time and space also. I mean, God knows before in the opera world, in the Golden Age as it’s called, travel wasn’t that fast, it took how long to get to the American continent from Europe –you had days to recover from your performances, and you would travel on the boat, and then have a production in the US. Rehearsals were different also, so much was at a slower pace. There’s a lot to remember and to think about from that era in terms of taking time to enjoy things, and to enjoy the music itself.

Top photo: Marine Cessat-Bégle
Fanny Hensel, Mendelssohn, Chen Reiss, composer, singer, music, portrait, classical, Onyx, album

Shining A Light On The Music Of Fanny Hensel

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On March 25, 2022

In classical, Europe, interviews, voice

A bright spot amidst a sea of gloom lately has been the learning more about the music of Fanny Hensel (1805-1847), especially through the voice of a favorite soprano.

Hensel was the noted sister of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) and the granddaughter of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). Her position, as the musical daughter in an assimilated family (from Judaism to Lutheranism), allowed her both the freedom to write and the restriction of never enjoying a career. In 2012’s Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner (Cambridge University Press), author David Conway shares an observation from English writer Henry Chorley (1808-1872), who was also a friend to Felix Mendelssohn, in which he notes the profound connection between class and creativity: “Had Madame Hensel been a poor man’s daughter, she must have become known to the world by the side of Madame Schumann and Madame Pleyel as a female pianist of the highest class.” There are contrasting views in the musicology world around the extent to which Hensel might have pursued a professional music career were it not for the limitations of her social class and the times in which she lived.

Through such debates, one is bound to consider a broad range of circumstances, some of which was paid for by the privilege her social class allowed: the challenges in wanting to marry Catholic painter Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861); a poem Goethe himself dedicated expressly to her (“Wenn ich mir in stiller Seele”) in 1827 (which she subsequently set to music in 1828); of the trip to Italy with husband and son (1839-40) which allowed her to meet young prizewinner musicians (including Charles Gounod) and thus spurred her creative confidence; of her friendship with the German diplomat and music enthusiast Robert von Keudell (1824-1903) who was so supportive of her work; of her first experience having her music published (a collection of songs) in 1846 and her nervousness around her brother’s reaction to said publication thereafter. Hensel had not consulted Felix prior to the undertaking, but he did extend congratulations to her later, writing in a letter that “may the public pelt you with roses, and never with sand”. She later wrote in her own journal that “Felix has written, and given me his professional blessing in the kindest manner. I know that he is not quite satisfied in his heart of hearts, but I am glad he has said a kind word to me about it.” She and her brother worked closely exchanging creative ideas through an active correspondence, with Felix regularly reworking his own compositions based on her suggestions. The pair had made tentative plans for an opera based on Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs), a 13th century German epic. In 1847 Hensel and Clara Schumann met a number of times as well, but a mere two months later, Hensel died of complications from a stroke. She was 41.

Though Hensel published in her own name (in 1846 technically listed as “Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy”), through time she has often been referred to solely in hyphenated form (Hensel-Mendelssohn, or vice-versa). Her own work comprises 450 works of music in total (including four cantatas, an orchestral overture, over 125 pieces for piano and in excess of 250 songs), and only became more recognized through the 1980s, through various recordings of her songs. In 2012, Hensel’s Easter Sonata for piano, lost for 150 years, was, at its discovery initially attributed to Felix Mendelssohn; the work was premiered in her name by Andrea Lam at Duke University, and later performed on BBC Radio 3 by Leeds Competition winner Sofya Gulyak.  Duke Arts & Sciences Professor of Music R. Larry Todd noted the range of influences in the 1828 sonata, and that “we usually think of 19th-century European music as familiar enough terrain. Occasionally, though, a forgotten or lost composition comes to light, and the circumstances of its history prompt a reappraisal of the conventional wisdom about the century we thought we knew all too well.” In 2018, the Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn Museum opened in the Neustadt district of Hamburg, and more recently, November 2021, Google featured Hensel in a Doodle to mark her 216th birthday.

Chen Reiss, soprano, singer, classical, music, klassische, musik, sangerin, Mendelssohn, Hensel, album, OnyxAcknowledging the various roles Hensel fulfilled in life allows one to more fully engage in her art, and to contemplate the whys, wherefores, and hows inherent to her creative process. Thus might one build an understanding, of not only her body of works, but the uniquely creative elements at play within them. Elements of the past (Bach, Beethoven, Schubert), contemporaneous (Schumann, Liszt), and future (Brahms, Liszt) intermingle in some thoughtful ways, and one senses, especially in her later works, a through-compositional style that would’ve found fulsome expression on the opera stage, a medium for which she would have been eminently suited. Soprano Chen Reiss agrees on this point, and brings her own beguiling brand of elegant, operatic flair to a new album. Fanny Hensel & Felix Mendelssohn: Arias, Lieder & Overtures (Onyx Classics) features two works by Mendelssohn himself (including concert overture The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), Rome version, and the first version (1834) of the concert aria “Infelice!”, and, centrally, a number of Hensel’s own works. The Lobgesang cantata, orchestrations of eight of her songs (done by composer/pianist Tal-Haim Samnon), and the rarely-heard concert aria Hero und Leander round out an engaging and aurally luscious listen. Reiss is especially moving in her performance of “Dämmrung senkte sich von oben“, with its opening, a lonely oboe, flitting in and out in beautiful counterpoint to Reiss’s silky soprano. Her delivery of Goethe’s text is beautiful, a seamless integration of head as much as heart; the line “Alles schwankt ins Ungewisse” (“Everything shakes with uncertainty”) is sung with such immediacy, and moments later modulated into an achingly sad sort of acceptance, as “schwarzvertiefte Finsternisse widerspiegelnd ruht der See.” (Darkness steeped in black is reflected calmly in the sea.) The spell is cast; this is performance of the very highest order, and one cannot help but feel in hearing it, as with all the album’s thirteen tracks, that Hensel herself would be well-pleased.

The release, initiated by the joint efforts of soprano Chen Reiss and Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich (JCOM) Music Director Daniel Grossmann, releases in physical form today (digital release was earlier this month), and showcases the range of colours and theatricality which are deeply woven within Hensel’s writing. I recently had the chance to speak with Reiss and Grossmann, about how the project came about, what the orchestrations add to pieces that started out life as piano arrangements, and thoughts on Hensel’s work as a female Jewish composer in the 19th century. They will be presenting a live programme, called “Die Familie Mendelssohn”, at Munich’s Cuvilliés Theater on April 6th.

Chen Reiss, Daniel Grossman, performance, live, singing, culture, music, klassische, musik, Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, singer, conductor.

Chen Reiss and Daniel Grossman, with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, in July 2021, performing as part of the celebrations marking 1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany. (Photo: Stefan Randlkofer)

How did this project come about, and why did you decide to orchestrate some of Hensel’s pieces?

CR It started in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown. I was in Berlin and got a call when I was there from Daniel, asking if I would join his orchestra in a special concert being held in Munich in July 2021, to celebrate 1700 years of Jewish life in Germany. Daniel suggested that I sing a piece by Fanny from the Faust Cantata which I didn’t know – I knew her art songs, but didn’t know she wrote any music for orchestra, or larger-scale pieces for orchestra and singers. So I heard it and completely fell in love with her music, and I asked Daniel later, do you know if she composed anything else for soprano and orchestra? And he came up with Hero und Leander, and the Lobgesang (“Meine Seele ist stille”), the two arias orchestrated by Fanny, and I told him, listen we have so little time to rehearse for the concert, let’s rehearse and record everything, and it’ll be ready! Daniel was fine with that, and on it went…

DG … I think it was a great idea to do it that way. We chose the songs because, of course, there’s not enough pieces by Fanny for orchestra and soprano – the problem with the Faust Cantata is that it requires a choir, and with corona restrictions at the time we couldn’t integrate a choir into the live concert. It was not possible to make a recording with a choir at that time either, and so we had the idea to perform her songs instead, and to orchestrate some of those songs. Chen knew Tal in Israel and he orchestrated those songs we chose, and I think it’s a very nice combination – the songs and some of these very dramatic cantatas, both Infelice and Hero und Leander.

What do you think the orchestration adds?

DG I think the interesting thing with orchestrating piano songs is that you get many more colours. Orchestral song, as a form, was not really known at that time (mid 19th-century) – of course there are some, but very few. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, this genre of orchestral song came up with Mahler and Strauss. Today we are much more used to the sound of songs done with an orchestra and these songs get so much more colour and much more meaning through the orchestration. The way these pieces (on the album) were done, the way Tal uses the orchestra, it’s in a very … it’s not a big orchestra sound, it’s very chamber-sounding, and I like that.

CR What Tal did, he orchestrated these songs in a very delicate way, and in a very transparent way, and very often the strophenlieder, the strophe songs, they normally are with the piano, and each verse would sound the same. In “Der Rosenkranz“, for example, Hensel wrote sections one after the other, one page with all four of them, with a completely identical piano part, but when Tal orchestrated them, he used a different instrumentation for each of the strophes, and that to me, gives each one a uniquely different colour. It’s like a story that develops not just in words and in poetry but also musically, in colour.

To my ears, the arrangements highlight a narrative element, which is exemplified in the song where you’re doing a call-response with a flute…

CR That’s “Gondellied“, yes I love that!

… it’s so striking, you think, ‘Ah, yes, evocative sounds, there’s a narrative, there’s a story.’ And the timbre of a flute is so interesting with that of your voice…

CR Well what gave us the courage there, and to orchestrate overall, was the expression. For instance, with Hero und Leander, Hensel orchestrated that herself, and it is a very dramatic piece! She uses a very broad range of expression there – a recitativo, then an aria, then a sort of cabaletta, so to say. It’s true of Infelice, by Mendelssohn too, that there are three parts in that, all three are orchestrated in a different way – and that gave me courage. Her thinking – Fanny’s thinking – was dramatic, theatrical, even, and I personally think that had she been a man, she would have written an opera.

After hearing this album – I agree with you!

CR Hero und Leander is even more advanced in its language, its harmonic language, than Felix’s. I don’t know if you agree, Daniel…

DG Yes!

CR… but it’s dramatic and sounds like Wagner in places, whose music of course came later – so I felt very good about these songs with orchestration and I think Tal did a great job with them. They come to life almost like theatre pieces.

How did you go about choosing these works specifically? Was there any sense that you were creating a broader story?

DG I chose the songs I liked most; I chose them by musical material. It’s not meant to be a story. Of course there are many more songs by her, all of which are beautiful, but these are the pieces I liked the most.

CR I had the fortune of meeting a very interesting lady in London who is a direct descendant of Fanny Hensel, and I actually learned from her about the character of this composer. She said if Felix was composed and well-behaved, like the facade of the family, everything proper, then Fanny was much more fiery and passionate, and so no wonder she wrote something like Hero und Leander, and also something like “Italien”, this song Felix published in his name – today we know that Fanny is the one who composed it. You probably saw me say this in another interview too: this song “Italien” was a favourite of Queen Victoria, and she asked Felix to play and sing it for her, when he visited Buckingham Palace, and it was then that he admitted to the Queen that his sister wrote it: “It’s not mine.” In the orchestration Tal added, especially with the extra bars it gives this evocative sound like you are in Tuscany somewhere. That’s one of my favourite songs, it shows she had a great sense of humour to choose that text and to orchestrate it.

You said in another interview that if her brother was more classical-leaning in terms of his sound, she was closer to Brahms…

CR Yes, Brahms came after her own time, as you know, but her harmonic language sounds a little bit more advanced than her own time. When I met her descendant and she told me how Fanny was very, very fiery and passionate and Felix, something she told me I didn’t know, he felt he had to kind of protect her from the public opinion – (the family) were worried if she were to have a (music) career in the open, that she might say something inappropriate, or do something which didn’t quite maybe sit well with her social class.

I like what you said on BBC Radio recently, about suspecting she would want us to use her name “Hensel” when referring to her compositions. Her brother had ‘ brand recognition’ as we call it now – but another contemporary issue pertains to ‘identity politics’, or more properly, contextualized understanding. How to think of Hensel – as a Jewish composer, a female composer, a Jewish female composer? Someone who came from a privileged family? Who had a famous brother? Can her work, should her work, be separated from those identities? Should we ignore them entirely? Or is it important we as listeners acknowledge those identities in order to appreciate her work more deeply?

DG This is a very delicate question – about being Jewish, and about being a Jewish composer. They had a third sister and the two sisters were really Christian; there are a lot of quotes where you can see Felix felt very Jewish, and … I read a lot about the Mendelssohn family because I’m really into this question of ‘how Jewish is this family?’ and I think they are much more Jewish than people think today. But: Fanny felt very Christian. Their parents raised them in a Christian environment. So it’s really interesting: Felix refers to himself quite often as Jewish, but she does not. And I think it’s much more about being a woman – their father, and also Felix, said it’s not allowed for her to be a professional composer, she’s a woman so she should be at home with her family, a woman shouldn’t work. But I think it was another time, and she was, as Chen said before, very happily married, so being a wife and mother was not a problem for her, or being at home with her husband, this famous painter. So I’m not sure we should speak of her as a specifically Jewish composer.

CR Speaking for Daniel and myself, we didn’t do the album because she’s a female Jewish composer – we did it because it’s really great music. And yes, I think because it’s been done with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, it’s nice that we have a project where we have two Jewish composers (together with Tal), but I don’t think it‘s a must. People ask me, what is Jewish music? I say, it’s a very big question, because there are also non-Jewish composers who wrote music which is much more Jewish than that of Felix and Fanny. I don’t know if you agree with me, Daniel…

DG For sure.

CR … so in that sense, I always say, Jewish music developed in so many ways, because the Jews didn’t have one country. It’s not like Czech music, for instance, which is connected to people who were in that territory specifically; Jewish music developed obviously from the liturgy, from prayers. But the same prayer done on Yom Kippur in Berlin sounds completely different than the same done in Baghdad – it’s the same words but they use completely different keys. So if a guy from Berlin would go sing what he usually does in Baghdad they would throw tomatoes at him because it will sound so different. We can make a whole interesting topic just on what exactly is Jewish music! Later on in the 19th century much more music developed in synagogues in Germany and in Austria, and in my opinion they were influenced by Schubert, Schumann, and classical keys, but in a way Jewish music itself has been developing the most now in the past 70 years, since the formation of israel, with the Jews having their own land. It’s very interesting to see the progress of composers like Paul Ben Haim (1897-1984) who was born in Germany; at the beginning of his career he wrote very German-like works, he wrote in this Straussian kind of way, but when he moved to Israel his style changed completely, and he began using different keys and Yemeni styles of music and these different rhythms. Jewish music is a big thing – Daniel can elaborate much more on that.

DG I have worked with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich now for 16 years and the idea when we started was never to play Jewish music; the idea was to find different Jewish cultural or religious elements and to speak about these elements through music. It’s the same with the Mendelssohns – they spoke through music. It’s interesting, this family: their grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was one of the most important Jewish philosophers – he was really Jewish – and his sons founded this bank, they were businessmen, they wanted to make business, and they knew as Jews: “We can’t make business as we are.” So assimilation was important for them, for their business, for continuing their business. I think this is the interesting thing behind the Mendelssohn family; it’s not about how Jewish they were, or how Jewish their music is – I don’t know. In terms of someone like Zemlinsky, I recorded a CD with his music, and he was raised in a very Jewish household, but his music is, I think, not Jewish at all…

CR I agree, there’s nothing Jewish about Zemlinsky!

DG …but he was raised Orthodox-Sephardic Jewish.

A cornerstone of the Jewish Chamber Orchestra of Munich is education – where does this album fit within those initiatives?

DG I always say there is the singer projects, like this, I can’t say where it exactly fits, but all the work we are doing, all the concerts we are doing, is telling something about Jewish culture and Jewish religion, and yes, I would answer your question, it’s this story of assimilation in Germany and Jewish life in Germany. People don’t know anything about Jewish history and culture and religion, they only know about the Holocaust. In Munich there is a community centre right in the centre of the city but it’s closed, the synagogue is not an open place like a church, you can’t go in, so people don’t meet Jews, and that’s what I try to break down, through this orchestra, so people have an easier way; they attend our concerts and find differing aspects of Jewish life here. Now that we are about to perform these pieces in a concert in two weeks in Munich, I will speak about all of this, and about the Mendelssohn family, as part of a short intro before the concert. Again, it’s an aspect I enjoy speaking about and telling the audience about, and I think that’s the work. It’s like little mosaics: there’s always a new piece, so to say, to explain to an audience.

How do the songs change live, and your understanding of them?

CR We were very fortunate when we performed the songs initially, we already had an audience. It wasn’t full because we were allowed 50% back then, but we had an audience, so we tested some of these songs on the public. Musically, when I prepare for a concert or the recording I prepare the same way, and I always think how can I serve with my voice, with my imagination, to serve the music the best way, so it’s not like I prepare any differently, whether the audience is there or not. But magic happens when the audience is there and I have my favourite songs, but there are other songs the audience likes more, so it’s always a surprise in that sense, but I can’t say I prepare differently.

To elaborate on the question before and what Daniel said about assimilation, there was a lot of intermarriage and conversion in Germany, and this is so interesting. In reading about Mahler and Mendelssohn, they felt they couldn’t keep their religion to be successful in business – or in the case of Mahler he felt he couldn’t keep it if he wanted to get a certain post – so both of them felt they had to convert. It’s important for us today to realize how much we advanced in human rights, in rights of women, in the right to keep your own religion and to feel safe in to say, “I am a Jew, I am a Muslim, I can do what I want” – or, we aim for this situation. I live in England, and my kids go to school here, and they don’t hide that they are Jewish. For the generation of my grandparents in Hungary, they could not openly talk about their Judaism – back then, Jews could not hold certain posts, only because they were Jews. And it’s important not to forget that. But this is what I love about the orchestra and our project: it shows how much Jews contributed to culture in Germany, and in Europe overall, and the extent to which Jewish people played a key role in cultural life in Germany.

Chen Reiss, soprano, live, classical, singer, singing, sangerin, klassische, musik, performance, Muenchen, JCOM

Photo: Stefan Randlkofer

So there’s a personal relationship of sorts with Hensel’s work?

CR Yes, I feel so committed to promote her music, because it’s great music but also, the fact she was a woman. You know, my daughter plays the piano, she uses those graded exam books, and right now she’s in book 2; I looked at the composers they put in, and at least 50% of these little pcs are written by female composers. I bet you even ten years ago it was not like that. So I think there is much more awareness today to giving female composers a voice – and maybe we are helping with that a bit.

Top photo: Paul Marc Mitchell

Singular

By

On February 21, 2010

In film

“You go into a bit of a vortex and then you hear the words, ‘Jeff Bridges‘… “

That’s Colin Firth talking about what goes through his mind this awards season.

The British actor didn’t have to worry about Bridges tonight, though; he won Best Actor at the BAFTA Awards for his stunning performance in A Single Man.

I saw Tom Ford‘s film (based on a work by Christopher Isherwood) just this afternoon, and I am not sure I can properly articulate its beauty in any meaningful way. The film revolves around George Falconer, a professor in 1962 Los Angeles, who has recently lost his partner. Ford features several long, meditative shots of Firth, whether he’s looking for something for breakfast, sitting in his car, sorting through his bank box, or remembering his times spent with Jim (Matthew Goode). George’s life is both bereft of life and hefty with love, as his interactions with his lifelong friend Charlotte (Julianne Moore) and new friend Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) demonstrate. With keen use of colour, a gorgeous sense of framing, and a flair for considered shading, Ford nicely balances the silence and the symphony, both literal and figurative. It’s an immense achievement that silently yet masterfully articulates the life of one man in quietly desperate circumstances.

Along with being a play on ideas of the single and solitary, the film is a meditation on aging. I was especially moved by the lingering close-ups of Firth’s expressive, natural face. No smooth-faced, muscled-up, botoxed Hollywood star, one could see the rough bumps and expression lines a late forty-something man has, and has righteously earned. In no way do those wrinkles detract from Firth’s physical attributes; in fact, they add to his attractiveness. In other words, never mind the Darcys -here’s the real thing. A Single Man gives us an honest portrait of an outsider -talented, articulate, even playful -who feels rejected by a world that deems him undesirable and considers his contributions worthless. This is deeply related to the speech George delivers on fear to a classroom full of pie-eyed students. The relationship between fear and love is profound in any arena, and Ford nicely, effectively explores this connection, using, again, the palette of Firth’s incredible face. Such an achievement is rendered with the deftest of strokes, and the most subtle arrangement of light, colour, shape and shadow balancing with the close, hard facial shots. It’s not hard to identify Ford’s design background here, but his translation of it into a cinematic expression is nothing short of astonishing for its emotional resonance.

Walking amidst a street fair after the film, I was still haunted by the director’s beautiful vision, the actor’s aged face, the silence, the noise, the light and the shadows. Questions around youth, age, beauty, and love, and one’s perceived “worthiness” of each whispered about like midnight waves lapping at cold toes. Some things are, perhaps, best left unanswered, but the shining faces on the street -of young and old alike -enjoying the sunny day, and the simple joy of living, was a fitting counterpart, and a beautiful reminder of the very things Isherwood wrote of. Viva love. Viva life.

 

Sow, Seed, Screen

By

On April 17, 2009

In art, video

The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

This video is courtesy of awesome Irish artist Johnny Kelly, whose work (alongside brother Mickey) you can find here. There’s also an interview over at excellent British site Don’t Panic.

I love the embrace of the playful and child-like with Kelly’s work; he uses a variety of loud colours, big shapes, and playful motifs. There’s nothing poe-faced about it. His work is an expression of true joy, and this video is proof. It’s a fascinating, compelling two minutes of online video. Gorgeous, and perfect for spring.

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