JANUARY 3rd  

Schubert, Winterreise, Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex Lyric theater programming for 2016 begins with two back-to-back musical tragedies. Franz Schubert's song cycle Winterreise ("Winter Journey,"1827) is the most touching of stories about unrequited love. The story is told through the short lyrical poems of Wilhelm Mueller. The despair of the Winter traveler ultimately drives him to madness. I have broadcast recordings of Winterreise regularly over the years sometime during the Winter season. Many of the great male singers of the twentieth century have recorded the complete song cycle. The greatest lieder singer of the twentieth century, German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012) recorded it several times over his long singing career. Now in the twenty first century German tenor Jonas Kaufmann (b. 1969) has essayed Winterreise. He has already made a name for himself on the operatic stage. Kaufmann has given Winterreise a decidedly non-operatic interpretation. He does not bellow out the lyrics. His approach is vocally subdued, intimate and introspective, as if he wants to convey to the listener what's going on in the Winter traveler's mind in the very moment of thought. In Kaufmann's own words, Winterreise should be"...an emotional experience which purges the soul." Jonas Kaufmann recorded Winterreisein 2013 with pianist Helmut Deutsch accompanying him. A 2014 Sony Classical release on a single silver disc.

    We now go back to one of Western civilization's primal tragedies, the ancient Greek story of murder and incest revolving around the figure of King Oedipus. Igor Stravinsky was drawn to the Oedipus myth as handed down to us by the playwright Sophocles. In composing his opera/oratorio Oedipus Rex (1927) Stravinsky wanted to do it in a "dead" classical tongue- Latin, the language of Seneca, the Roman tragedian who adapted Sophocles' original drama. Stravinsky's severely neoclassical style perfectly suits the Latin libretto that his French contemporary Jean Cocteau prepared for him. Although it lasts a little less than an hour in performance, Oedipus Rex is truly monumental in conception, like a veritable Parthenon built in sound. It is arguably Stravinsky's finest summary theatrical composition, taking in baroque and classical operatic traditions, plus spoken word narration. I've broadcastOedipus Rex twice before in the grim dead of Winter, in January of 1993 and again in January,2006. There's actually a fair number of recordings this work in circulation. The latest one to come into my hands is the one the London Symphony Orchestra made live in concert at their usual venue, the Barbican hall in London, in the Spring of 2013. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the LSO, the Monteverdi Choir and a cast of British vocal singers. The recording was issued through the orchestra's own LSO Live label in 2014. 

 

JANUARY 10th   

Verdi,Aida  Get ready to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann's voice again this Sunday, this time in the monumental operatic role of  Radames. Giuseppe Verdi's Aida (1871) has always been so popular because of the grand stage spectacle it presents. Aida is the nineteenth century predecessor of those twentieth century Hollywood movie epic blockbusters like The Ten Commandments. The Sony CD recording I broadcast on Sunday, December 1,1991 originated in  the Met's staged production of this warhorse of the repertoire as recorded at the Manhattan Center in May,1990. The superstar tenor Placido Domingo portrayed Radames opposite AprilleMillo in the title role. In the new studio production for Warner Classics Kaufmann was again paired very favorably with soprano Anja Harteros. His was the first time Kaufmann sang Radames, but Kaufmann and Harteros have sung together in other Verdi operas. All the musical resources to record a landmark Aida for the twenty first century were drawn together in Rome in February of 2015. The singing cast is backed by the Orchestra and Chorus of the AccademiaNazionale di Santa Cecilia , under the direction of Antonio Pappano. The Italian State Police Band augmented the Santa Cecelia orchestra in the opera's supercollosal moments. The four acts of Aida are spread out over three Warner Classics compact discs.

 

 

 

JANUARY 24th   

Tchaikovsky,Iolanta Today's opera program begins late- after two PM, so as to accommodate broadcast earlier in the afternoon of a University of Hartford women's basketball game. A smaller scale lyric theaterwork is called for- one that will fit into the shorter timeslot. It has been a long. long time since I last broadcast Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's one act opera 

Iolanta (1892). That was on Sunday, May 27, 1984. Iolanta was Tchaikovsky's last such composition. Its Russian language libretto was prepared by the composer's brother Modest after a play by the Danish poet Hendrik Hertz. That play is a sort of fairy tale about a blind princess. It is also something of a parable about insight and a superficial way of looking at life. Back in 1984 I presented Iolanta on Columbia stereo LP's, the recording originally released in the USSR in 1976 through the Soviet state Melodiya record label.  Mark Ermler directed the orchestra and chorus of Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. The Bolshoi's singing cast,of course, was made up entirely of native Russian speakers. Starring in the title role was soprano Tamara Sorokina. Today you get to hear Russia's new star soprano of the 21st century, Anna Netrebko, joined by three other Russians in the principal roles. This new recording of Iolanta is, however, German in origin. It was released in 2015 through Deutsche Grammophon, and presents a concert performance of the opera given at the Philharmonie hall in Essen in 2012. The orchestra and chorus were brought in from Slovenia. A French conductor, Emmanuel Villaume directs the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra andSlovenian Chamber Chorus.

 

 

JANUARY 31st

PREEMPTED by broadcast of a University of Hartford women's basketball game.

 

FEBRUARY 7th

Rameau, Les Surprises de l'Amour  I had wanted to present "Love's Surprises" next Sunday the 14th as a Valentine's Day audio treat, but due to preemption on the lovers' holiday I decided to air this French opera-ballet ahead of time today. Les Surprises de l'Amour premiered in 1748 at Versailles to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. It seems to have particularly pleased the French king's paramour Madame Pompadour. She saw to it that it was produced for her private theater des Petits Cabinets in the royal palatial complex. Rameau largely reworked the score of the work for public performance at the Paris Opera in 1757, and reworked it further in 1758 for yet another staged revival. It is that final version you will hear as recorded in 2013 for the Spanish classical record label Glossa, and issued that same year in a three-CD package. Sebastien d'Herin leads the period instrument players and choir of Les Nouveaux Characteres. Writing in Fanfare magazine (Mar/Apr, 2014 issue) reviewer Barry Brenesal pronounces the Glossa release "...one of the best recordings  of a Rameau stage work in several years." After listening to Les Surprises de l'Amour I think you'll come to agree with me that Jean Phillippe Rameau (1683-1764) is the greatest composer of the French baroque.

 

 

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14th

 

FEBRUARY 21st

Pfitzner,Palestrina  Ash Wednesday fell early this year, on February 10th. From that date onward up to Easter Sunday it's the penitential period known as Lent in the traditional Christian calendar. In old Catholic Europe the opera houses closed for the duration. Instead of opera, sacred oratorio was performed without theatrical staging. I often feature oratorios and sacred choral works on the Sundays in Lent.  But why not also program an opera about the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church? The German composer Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949) was an almost exact contemporary of Richard Strauss. Pfitzner is known today for only one opera Palestrina (1917). Although his musical style is more conservative than that of Strauss, Pfitzner'sPalestrina is a most extraordinary composition. No opera calls for so many solo men's voices, especially in the lower register. The story concerns the legend about the famous sixteenth century composer of music for the Roman Catholic Church; how the heavenly power of Palestrina's music succeeded in rising above the political infighting at the Council of Trent. Plainchant and Renaissance polyphony color the score. It all blends well into Pfitzner's general post-Wagnerian style. Many illustrious basses and baritone took part in the 1973 recording of Palestrina for Deutsche Grammophon, with Rafael Kubelik leading the Bavarian Radio Symphony. That old DGG boxed set of LP's is to be found in our WWUH classical music record library. I drew upon it three times for broadcast in 1985, 1994 and 2013. Our station has recently acquired a 2015 CD reissue through the Dutch label Brilliant Classics of a recording of Palestrina originally released through the German Edel record com-pany in 1990. Edel offered a 1986 concert production of the opera undertaken at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin. OthmarSuitner directed the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra and the Chorus of the Deutsche Staatsoper of Berlin. Starring as the composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina is the distinguished German tenor Peter Schreier.

 

FEBRUARY 28th

Preemption or no preemption, this is the concluding point in my opera notes where I give credit where credit is due. I duly report that most of the featured recordings in this two-month period of programming come from our station's ever-growing library of classical music on disc, the two exceptions being Beowulf and Rameau's Les Surprises de l'Amour, both of which are in my own CD collection. Thanks as always to Kevin O'Toole, operations director here at WWUH, for mentoring me in the preparation of these notes for cyber-publication.