Your "lyric theater" program

with Keith Brown

programming selections

for the months of May and June,  2015 

Sunday 1-4:30pm

Trial by Jury

 SUNDAY MAY 3RD Puccini, Madama Butterfly 

     Delayed by a Winter that wouldn't quit, it's finally cherry blossom time: time to listen once again to that alltime popular favorite of operas, Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1904), with its lovely "flower duet" for Cio-Cio San and Suzuki. There have been many wonderful Cio-Cio Sans in the history of recorded sound. The Irish soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan was cast in the role for the first electric recording of the entire opera in 1929. One of the most beloved of Butterflys was the Italian soprano Renata Scotto in the mid twentieth century. The stereo recording of Butterfly she made in 1966,the one with Barbirolli conducting, was the first of two she made for EMI.It was originally issued stateside on Angel 33 1/3 rpm LP discs. There's a copy in our station's classical record library that I have drawn upon twice for broadcast, first way back on Sunday, December 7,1984 and then more lately on Sunday, March 30, 2008. Another admirable soprano of recent times, the Ukrainian Svetlana Katchour recorded Butterfly in its full 1904 La Scala version for the Naxos label, capturing the sound of a production in the German city of Bremen. I aired the Naxos CD's on Sunday, September 8, 2002. 

     Today I dig back into our now-historic WWUH classical LP collection to present you with the American soprano Anna Moffo's take on Cio-Cio San in a 1963 recording for RCA Victor. This recording gives us Puccini's complete score of the work. Essentially a studio recording, it was made in the Rome Opera House. Erich Leinstorf was conducting. The Met's Rosalind Elias, an American mezzo, sang the role of Suzuki. Pinkerton was the distinguished Italian tenor Cesare Valetti. I employ those vintage RCA platters.  

SUNDAY MAY 10TH  Walllace, Maritana 

     Beyond Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, little is remembered today about English opera in general in the Victorian era. First, you need to know there was a wealth of it. One good example of it is Wallace's Maritana (1845), enormously popular in its time, now completely forgotten. Even the tunes from Maritana  were popular on their own, like "There Is A Flower That Bloometh" or "Let Me Like A Soldier Fall." William Vincent Wallace (1812-65) was Irish by birth, spent a lot of time in London creating a series of English operas and ultimately became an American citizen. After Maritana  Wallace went on to write Lurline (1860), his third opera, conceived in the spirit of Weber's Der Freischutz, about a Lorelei-like figure. The Naxos studio recording of Lurline, with legendary opera conductor Richard Bonynge in charge, went over the air on Sunday, June 12, 2011. The plot of Maritana is ridiculous. It concerns an alluring Spanish Gypsy street singer and her dalliances with the nobility of Spain.  In 2011 Naxos reissued on two CD's the original 1996 Marco Polo release of Maritana recorded from a 1995 concert production by RTE Radio Ireland. Proinnsias O'Duinn directed the RTE Concert Orchestra and RTE Philharmonic Choir, with a cast of Irish singers. 

SUNDAY MAY 17TH   Fall, Madame Pompadour; 

Boismortier, Don Quichotte  

     The theme for this Sunday's two-part program might whimsically be titled "The French Are Funny." Part one of today's presentation isn't French at all, really. It's a Viennese operetta by Leo Fall (1873-1925), the subject of which is the illustrious mistress of king Louis XV of France. She was involved in the intrigues of the court of Versailles. Fall's Madame Pompadour, his last operetta, premiered not in Vienna, but in Berlin in 1922. Its light heart and lyrical soul remains in Vienna; the Vienna Volksoper has staged it in 1955, 1986 and  again in 2012, that third production being recorded for release through the German cpo label in 2014 on one generously timed compact disc. Andreas Schuller directs the chorus and orchestra of the Volksoper. 

      Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) wrote a lot of instrumental music in the ornate Rococo style, but he also wrote four lyric stageworks, one of which is Don Quichotte (1743). It is styled a "comic ballet" in three acts, and while there's plenty of dancing and good dance tunes in it,it is essentially a satirical theaterwork- a French baroque sendup of the Spanish author Cervantes' novel, which was satirical to begin with. The cultural resources of the Lorraine region of France made possible a studio recording of Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse. Herve Niquet directed his period instrument ensemble Le Concert Spirituel, with eleven vocal soloists. That recording was issued under the Naxos label on a single compact disc in 1996. 

SUNDAY MAY 24TH   Gordon, Rappahannock County  

     Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956) made a name for himself first as a  composer of songs, then more recently of lyric theater works in the mode of the song cycle. He has essayed one of the most traditional subjects in all of operatic literature, the ancient Greek Orphic myth. I broadcast the world premiere recording of his Orpheus and Euridice (2006) on Sunday, July 6, 2008. He has also tackled historical subjects. His dramatized song cycle Rappahannock County (2009/10) practically demands to be heard on the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day, formerly called Decoration Day, began as a special day to honor those who fought and died in the American Civil War. The songs of Rappahannock County are grouped as if they were the five acts of an opera, one act for each year of the conflict, from 1861 in succession to 1865. The location of the Rappahannock river in Virginia serves as a boundary between North and South. The lyrics of Mark Campbell are derived ultimately from letters, diaries and personal accounts of the 1860's. 

      A cast of five singers portray more than thirty different characters. They bring the period to life and express the devastating impact the war had on all who endured it. Ricky Ian Gordon's Rappahannock County premiered at the Virginia Arts Festival, with performers drawn from the Virginia Opera company. Rob Fisher directed the Virginia Arts Festival Orchestra. The recording was made in the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk, VA. Naxos Records issued Rappahannock County on two CD's in 2013 in its "American Opera Classics' line.

SUNDAY MAY 31ST   Rimsky-Korsakov, The Tale of Tsar Saltan 

     I always enjoy broadcasting  the fairy tale operas of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with their beautiful melodies inspired by Russian folk music and their lush orchestration. This one was commissioned to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great national poet Alexander Pushkin in 1899. The premiere staging of the opera was not ready, however, until the following year. The story presented in the opera is derived almost without alteration from one of Pushkin's fantastical tales. Rimsky's score for Tsar Saltan contains the famous "Flight of the Bumble Bee'- the fantastical, fluttery tune in the orchestra intended in the opera to accompany the scene in which the hero Prince Gvidon is magically transformed into a bumble bee so he can travel farther and faster than a human being. The performance resources employed in the Melodiya CD reissue of Tsar Saltan are Russian through and through. The recording was originally made in Moscow in 1958, so it qualifies as a historical audio document of this work. Vassily Niebolsin was conducting the Choir and Orchestra of the USSR State Academic Bolshoi  Theatre, with an all native cast of Russian vocal soloists.

SUNDAY JUNE 7TH   Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor 

     This gem of a bel canto opera takes its story from a novel by Sir Walter Scott. When I broadcast it on Sunday, June 8, 2008 you heard this well known work by Gaetano Donizetti in its French language version, titled Lucie de Lammermoor. Originally produced in Naples in 1835, the opera reached Paris in 1837. French soprano Natalie Dessay starred in the title role in a 2002 Virgin Classics CD release of the staged revival of the French version by Opera of Lyon. Madame Dessay sang Lucia again in Italian language in the concert hall of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia in 2010, with Valery Gergiev conducting. The Mariinsky CD's I broadcast on Sunday, May 13, 2012.

     Now you get to hear another notable soprano of our time, the German Diana Damrau as Lucia, again in a concert production of the work recorded live in performance in 2013. Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducted the orchestra and chorus of the Munich Opera. You listeners may remember Damrau's interpretations of the songs of Richard Strauss for Virgin Classics broadcast on Sunday, June 10, 2012. She recorded Lucia for Erato/Warner Classics with the Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja cast opposite her in the role of the Scottish nobleman Sir Edgardo Ravenswood. This recording restores the long cadenza with flute obbligato to Lucia's famous mad scene. (Ironically, this most famous passage from the opera was not composed by Donizetti!) Also restored to the mad scene is the part Donizetti did write for the 

spooky-sounding tones of the glass harmonica.Lucia di Lammermoor was the one specimen opera of the Italian bel canto era to remain within the international repertoire right through the succeeding half-century period of the verismo style.

SUNDAY JUNE 14TH  Milhaud, L'Orestie d'Eschyle  

     Although I certainly would like to air them, I confess I have never broadcast any of the fifteen operas of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). I simply have never run across any recordings of them. There has, however, come into my hands recently a recording of Milhaud's trilogy of oratorios, all three of them intensely dramatic in their treatment of the ancient Greek myths dealing with the murderous Orestes and the cursed House of Atreus. The old stories have been handed down to us as staged tragedies  by the playwright Aeschylus. Milhaud worked on his Oresteia trilogy over the period 1913-23, employing a French translation of the Greek text by Catholic poet Paul Claudel. Milhaud's personal style of composition changed over the decade he labored on it. It begins where Schonberg's Gurrelieder  leaves off in the late Romantic style, then transitions into a neoclassical mode more like his fellow Frenchman Poulenc or maybe Stravinsky in his Parisian days, then moves on to incorporate unsettling polytonality, lots of special percussion effects and even a Gallic form of Sprechstimme vocalization. (This latter part of the trilogy was actually staged years later as an opera directed by the composer's wife.) 

     The world premiere recording of the complete trilogy was issued courtesy of the Naxos label in 2014 on three compact discs.L'Orestie d'Eschyle  requires a small army of singers and players: a symphony orchestra of Mahlerian size with enlarged percussion section, and four choruses, plus vocal soloists. Naxos gives us an American concert production of Milhaud's masterwork, originating at the University of Michigan and employing professional and semi-pro performers. The vocal soloists are all professionals. They are backed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Choir and University Choir of the Ann Arbor campus School of Music, the Orpheus Singers and UMS Choral Union. Kenneth Kieser marshals all these musical resources. Two reviewers for Fanfare magazine were impressed with the Naxos release. That tough cookie of a reviewer, Lynn Rene Bayley (amazingly) wrote,  "This will surely be one of the  outstanding operatic recordings of our time" (Fanfare, Mar/Apr, 2015 issue). 

SUNDAY JUNE 21ST Ching, A Midsummer Night's Dream

     Often around the time of the Summer solstice I will feature some lyric theatrical treatment of William Shakespeare's immortal romantic comedy. Twice I have broadcast Shakespeare's complete spoken word play on Decca/Argo LP's, part of Decca's recording project of all of the Bard's plays in early stereo sound circa 1960. Then there's Benjamin Britten's opera (also from 1960), which I've also broadcast twice, plus Mendelssohn's well known Incidental music on a couple of occasions. Now, get ready for Michael Ching's opera a cappella innovation. Yes, folks: an opera for voices only, ie. a cast of solo singers and a specially prepared 'Voicestra" in place of the expected instrumental accompaniment of an orchestra. Even the percussion effects are vocalized. 

     The Voicestra consists of the twelve male voices of the contemporary music group DeltaCappella, joined by the eight female singers of Riva. Curtis Tucker directs them all. The composer of this lyric theatrical novelty, Michael Ching, has long been the director of Opera Memphis. He oversaw the original production of his opera a cappella. It was staged at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tennessee in January, 2011. The original cast recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream was released through Albany Records in 2014 on two compact discs. 

SUNDAY JUNE 28TH Gordon, "27" 

      Ricky Ian Gordon strikes again with yet another lyric theater piece on a historical subject, to be specific: gay history. The title of this opera refers to the address in Paris: 27 Rue de Fleurus, where life partners Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas dwelled, and where they hosted those salons that attracted the artistic greats of the 1920's.  Let's not forget literary innovator Gertrude Stein's connection to opera. She wrote the librettos for two operas with music by Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts (1928) and The Mother of Us All (1946). It's perfectly fitting that a gay American composer of the twenty first century should be inspired to write an opera about a famous lesbian couple. Royce Vavrek worked up a libretto for an operatic fantasy based upon Stein's life, with Toklas playing a critical part in the proceedings. For the larger-than-life role of Gertrude Stein Gordon already had in mind the voice of contralto Stephanie Blythe, the perfect match for whom he found in soprano Elizabeth Futral as Alice B. Toklas. "27" was commissioned and premiered by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Michael Christie conducted members of the St. Louis Symphony. The recording of "27" was made live in performance in June, 2014 and was issued that same year on two compact discs by Albany Records. I present "27" this Sunday as special gay pride programming, keeping in mind the historic Stonewall uprising that took place in New York City's Greenwich Village gay ghetto during the last weekend of June, 1969.

   I obtained for broadcast that Albany CD release of "27" from Rob Meehan, former classics deejay here at WWUH and a specialist in the alternative musics of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. For many years he's been loaning me recordings from his own extensive collection of "alternative" operas.  From him I also borrowed for broadcast the Naxos CD releases of the two operas by Ricky Ian Gordon, plus the opera a cappella of Michael Ching. From my own collection of opera on silver disc I have contributed to this two month period of programming the recordings of Leo Fall's Madame Pompadour, Boismortier's Don Quichote, Wallace's Maritana and The Tale of Tsar Saltan by Rimsky-Koraskov.  The rest of the featured recordings come out of our station's ever growing audio library of classical music. As always, I thank our station's operations director Kevin O'Toole for mentoring me in the preparation of these notes for cyber-publication. Thanks also must go to Kari Mackey for her further preparation of my notes for inclusion in our WWUH Program Guide.