Clef Notes

Peabody Opera Theatre presents 'Cosi fan tutte'

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:43:26 -0500

It wasn't Peabody Opera Theatre's shining hour, vocally speaking, but Thursday's performance of "Cosi" had its rewards (an alternate cast sings Friday and Sunday).

My review is posted elsewhere online; an abbreviated version will see the light of print on Sunday.

Exceptional Swedish soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom dies at 82

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:13:57 -0500

The long list of departed opera stars sadly grew again Friday with the death of Elisabeth Soderstrom in Stockholm at the age of 82, following a stroke.

The Swedish soprano, born in 1927, was an extraordinarily versatile, elegant musician who enjoyed a long, much-admired career that officially began in 1947. She sang at the world's greatest opera houses in repertoire ranging from Mozart and Donizetti to Berg and Janacek. She enriched the opera world wherever and whenever she performed.

Here are a few examples of Miss Soderstrom's artistry, singing one of Grieg's most beautiful songs, the lovely aria from Dvorak's "Rusalka," and the sublime trio from "Der Rosenkavalier":

Blast from the Past: cellist Gregor Piatigorsky

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:19:43 -0500

Gregor Piatigorsky, at 6'6'', was among the tallest of the musical giants from the good old days. The cellist's artistry towered impressively, too. He had superb taste, a formidabe technique and a warm personality that disarmed people onstage and off.

Piatigorsky, who died in 1976, left a mark on the cello world comparable to that left by Heifetz on the violin world. (I wonder how many of yesterday's musical greats would easily find a manager, let alone a record deal and major concert bookings, if they were facing today's classical scene, with its weakness for the fluffed and buffed, the mediocre-but-marketable.)

For this week's blast from the past, I thought we could use a reminder of Piatigorsky genuine, refined, richly communicative musicianship. Here's sample of him playing Bach, Chopin and Faure:

Wagner in concert form: Washington National Opera shows how to do it

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:58:38 -0500

Opera is the highest of the art forms -- some of us believe, at any rate -- because it combines music, acting, visuals (scenery and costumes) and sometimes dance. Opera performed only in concert form must be a lesser entity, right? Not if you do it up proper, the way Washington National Opera did with "Gotterdammerung."

There are fully staged productions that would have a hard time measuring up to what I encountered last Sunday at the Kennedy Center. (I'm finally reporting on it now under the better-late-than-never assumption.)

This was the second of two performances the company gave as a way of making amends for the suspension of its first attempt at tackling all of Wagner's "Ring" Cycle. Budget constraints forced the postponement of what was to have been a staged "Gotterdammerung" this season, the last installment of WNO's intriguing take on the "Ring," one filled with American iconography.

WNO has promised to do that staged version of "Gotterdammerung" in the near future, together with the other three pieces of the cycle. (There was no repeat of that promise, however, in the program message from general director Placido Domingo, who wrote only that "these performances ... mark the conclusion of WNO's production of the 'Ring.' ")

The company delivered the concert-"dammerung" in the KC Opera House and kept the orchestra in the pit, as it would have been for a sets-and-all production. That was a huge

Saluting Johnny Mercer on his centennial (part 2)

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:05:47 -0500

As a commenter on my first Mercer salute pointed out, it would have been nice to include clips of the great lyricist singing.

Mercer had an unmistakable tone, with its Southern twang, and superb phrasing that was the equal of the best singers of his day. And, needless to say, when Mercer sang one of his songs, it was with the voice of authority.

Here are some examples, including a couple of his lesser-known songs:

Saluting centennial of Johnny Mercer, master lyricist

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:02:17 -0500

This is the day to salute Johnny Mercer, who was born 100 years ago, on Nov. 18, 1909.

He is credited with the lyrics for about 1,000 songs, including an exceptional number of what have long been recognized as standards of the great American songbook. Mercer's use of language could be just too "marvelous for words," as some of the past century's finest melody writers discovered.

I've always felt that the best popular songs, where text and tune are perfectly united, deserve to be ranked alongside the best classical art songs. Many of the works that bear the Mercer trademark certainly can be so ranked.

To celebrate his centennial, here are a few of my favorite Mercer songs, sung by some fabulous artists who make the most out of his lyrics -- and yes, as any of my devoted readers would expect, that means Streisand will be included:

The blissful sounds of silence

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:26:45 -0500

If you attend a lot of live performances -- of any kind -- you know well how the people around you can mar the experience. I think I must be some kind of magnet for misbehaving cretins, since they're always sitting near me -- the talkers, the page-turners, the candy-cravers, the ladies with 500 clanging bracelets crammed onto their arms so that they emit a chorus of "Jingle Bells" with every slight move.

Sunday afternoon at the Kennedy Center Opera House, while a really terrific concert version of "Gotterdammerung" was being performed by Washington National Opera, a couple of over-aged lovebirds in the row ahead kept up a nonstop series of distractions: kiss-kiss, head on shoulder for a few seconds, kiss-kiss, whisper, head back on shoulder, kiss kiss, whisper. I was amazed that they lasted through the five-hour event and, sure enough, they were the first on their feet to applaud when it was over -- had they actually heard anything of the performance?

And then there was the guy in one of the balconies who screamed out something near the end of the first act. I swear I thought I heard "Wotan!", but that was probably my imagination. My guess is that the man had fallen asleep and was dreaming; or maybe he had been dragged to the opera by a domineering spouse and was expressing his annoyance. Either way, not the sort of thing you want to hear during Wagner.

Oh yes, there was also the unfortunate

In farewell (or not), Kiri Te Kanawa demonstrates her lasting vocal beauty

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:34:02 -0500

For quite a while now, there has been talk of Kiri Te Kanawa retiring, at least from the opera stage. But each time someone declares that she's heading for the exit door, she says (as she did to me in a phone interview the other day), "Hang on."

That happened again Saturday night when Te Kanawa (or Dame Kiri, as Her Majesty's subjects would say -- she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire 27 years ago) gave what was billed as her "farewell" DC recital, presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society at the Kennedy Center. The glamorous, decidedly youthful-looking 65-year-old soprano took a moment during the concert to say, in essence, "Hang on." She suggested that, since she had performed in Washington "on average every five years" since 1982, she could well be back. If she sounds half as good in 2014 as she did Saturday, I say, bring her on.

I don't want to overstate the situation in this recital. Te Kanawa did not

Marin Alsop, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony deliver uncommon versions of Gershwin

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:33:08 -0500

A big story — maybe the biggest — in classical music over the past 30 years or so is the historical authenticity movement, the attempt to re-create the sounds and playing styles of distant times. This obsession generated a revolution in the approach to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and other pre-20th century composers. It’s less common to find advocates for going “authentic” with post-20th century repertoire, although there certainly are opportunities ripe for re-thinking.

Personally, I’d love to see more attention paid to the way the works of Mahler, for example, were performed during, or closer to, his own day. That might have added an extra dimension last week, when Marin Alsop led the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Fourth. But Alsop is taking quite an interesting spin on the authenticity approach with the BSO’s current program, devoted totally to Gershwin and showcasing the superb French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

As it turns out, this presentation raises vexing questions about the whole historic reclamation business. It’s one thing to return to the original scoring for Gershwin’s most celebrated instrumental piece, “Rhapsody in Blue.” But what about reviving an orchestration of the Concerto in F that Gershwin didn’t prepare or approve, but was written by the same guy who did that first version of the “Rhapsody”? Where’s an ethicist when you really need one?

The story of the “Rhapsody”

Blast from the Past: Richard Tauber

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:29:11 -0500

Maybe it's all the rain we've been having lately in dear old Baltimore, but I just had to hear something sunny for my weekly trip down Nostalgia Lane. And that made me think of the ever-sunny voice of Richard Tauber, the German-born tenor who had one of the sweetest, warmest tones ever documented on recording.

I could hear this guy sing anything -- and he sang just about anything, too, from lieder to Broadway. I'll start with some Schumann, sung by Tauber portraying a certain Herr SteigIer in one of his films. Then an example of the lighter fare he sang so charmingly. After much internal debate, I settled on "They Say It's Wonderful" from Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun" -- not the first thing you might associate with Tauber. I think it's a gem of a performance, recorded in 1947, a year before the tenor's death.

Finally, since Tauber knew his way around a podium, I thought I'd include a non-vocal example of his artistry, too, conducting of the overture to Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus." Note the number of his idiosyncratic touches, especially the very slow tempo for the waltz (starting at 2:23 on the clip) and the deliciously gradual move into tempo for the Act 1 trio (at 4:51).

Here, then, three cloud-lifting blasts from the past:

Update on conductor Leonard Slatkin's recovery from heart attack

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:38:22 -0500

Leonard Slatkin, the dynamic American conductor who recently became music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra after a long tenure with Washington's National Symphony, is still on the mend from a heart attack earlier this month in Holland.

The Detroit Free Press reports: "He’s back in America with his doctors and they’ve said, 'Go rest and come back at the end of November and we’ll do a check-up,' " said Slatkin’s manager R. Douglas Sheldon. "We anticipate this will go smoothly and he’ll be back on the podium soon." Slatkin, 65, is now expected to return to the podium in Detroit during the second week of December.

As a little get-well wish for a conductor I greatly admire, especially for his enthusiastic devotion to American music (classical and classy pop alike), here he is at the 2004 Last Night of the Proms in London, leading an endearing performance by baritone Thomas Allen of a song I hope Slatkin will be singing to himself real soon:

Jean-Yves Thibaudet to play rare version of Gershwin's Concerto in F

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:56:59 -0500

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra welcomes back French pianist (and fashion plate) Jean-Yves Thibaudet for two weeks of programs, the first one devoted to Gershwin. In today's paper, I've got a story about Thibaudet that you may find worth a read.

What makes this weekend's Gershwin fest of particular interest is the inclusion of a rarely heard jazz orchestra arrangement by Ferde Grofe of

Music we've been missing (part 14): Florent Schmitt

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:34:38 -0500

Locally, we've heard a good amount of Debussy and Ravel, but what about another French master of richly colored, highly atmospheric music? I'd say we could use a dose of Florent Schmitt, whose work has much to recommend it, but hardly ever turns up in the concert hall.

Some of his pieces would not only make a worthy substitute for such well-worn things as "La valse" or "La mer," but even for the popular Strauss tone poems -- Schmitt's writing often suggests a fusion of Impressionism and late-German romanticism.

Here are a couple examples of what we've been missing: the finales from the lush "La Tragedie de Salome" for orchestra from 1910 and the downright stunning "Psalm XLVII" for chorus and orchestra from 1904:

Sylvia McNair powerful in Weill-filled "Songspiel" from American Opera Theater

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:19:00 -0500

A Kurt Weill song can't be mistaken for anything else. There's something tense in the warmest of his melodic lines, something pointed in the simplest of his harmonies. And that's even before you consider the words. Weill was inspired by some remarkable lyricists -- Bertolt Brecht, Ira Gershwin, Walter Mehring, Roger Fernay, Maurice Magre, Maxwell Anderson -- who found fresh ways of addressing the old issues of love and loss.

Out of some 17 Weill songs, American Opera Theater artistic director Timothy Nelson has fashioned an engrossing, even edgy new work called "Songspiel," which opened last weekend at the Theatre Project.

The music comes from such shows as "Happy End," "Mahagonny" and "Lost in the Stars" (the title song from that score isn't an entirely comfortable fit for "Songspiel"). Nelson also mined several of the stand-alone songs Weill wrote that were famously revived and revitalized by soprano Teresa Stratas on the 1981 recording "The Unknown Kurt Weill."

"Songspiel" is first and foremost a vehicle for another stellar soprano, Sylvia McNair, who originally signed on to perform Weill's "The Seven Deadly Sins." When that project had to be scrapped (the Weill Foundation's insistence on a full orchestra proved problematic for the small company), McNair stayed on and Nelson sought another way to capitalize on the possibility of presenting of one of America's most gifted and engaging vocal artists.

His concept for "Songspiel" involves a narrative about

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Mozart, Mahler and Marin

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:54:46 -0500

The last word Gustav Mahler uttered on his deathbed — according to his wife, Alma — was “Mozart.” Perhaps the composer was already hearing sounds from the next world, or simply reliving some of his happiest memories from this one.

The deep connection Mahler felt to Mozart’s music is never more apparent than in the Symphony No. 4, where Mahler offers a melodic directness and transparency of texture that produce a Mozartean grace. That quality was all the more apparent in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s program over the weekend, which paired Mahler’s Fourth with several Mozart items to satisfying effect.

Music director Marin Alsop led a lithe and winsome account of “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” at the start of Sunday’s concert before a not-so-large audience at the Meyerhoff. Funny how such a popular work, one that many a non-classical music fan could hum a few bars of, doesn't actually get played by major orchestras very often. What a perfect little creation this is, a synthesis of 18th-century symmetry and sensibility, sparked by contagious good humor.

The inclusion of three concert arias for soprano on the program provided a strong link to the Mahler symphony, which, of course, famously ends with a soprano solo. The arias also gave the audience an extra opportunity to savor the talents of