The Beautiful Voice, 1: Margaret, the Other Price

Operaphiles generally agree about singers whose prime attribute is a beautiful voice. Before recognizing musicality, charisma, interpretation, diction, personality, they comment on timbre: the dominant adjectives are “creamy”, “sweet,” “dulcet.” This blog has devoted posts to singers initially beloved for their “beautiful voice, among them Kathleen Ferrier, Renata Tebaldi, Dorothy  Maynor, and Rosa Ponselle. This is the first in a series of posts focused specifically on artists endowed with a “beautiful” voice.

Two sopranos shared a family name, a repertoire, an era, and esteem for the luscious quality of their timbre. Margaret Price (1941-2011
) was more than a decade younger than Leontyne Price (1927- ). Although her career was centered  in Europe, with particular allegiance to the opera companies of Cologne and Munich, Margaret sang frequently in Chicago and San Francisco. She rarely performed with the Met--less than twenty times between 1985 and 1995; Leontyne was a major Met star; her tally was over two hundred performances between 1961 and 1985. They are both remembered for the Donna Annas of Don Giovanni, Fiordiligis of Così fan tutte, and Amelias of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. They sang Aïda, Margaret much less successfully than Leontyne, for  whom it was a signature role (Leontyne once replaced an indisposed Margeret in a San Francisco Aïda). Margaret excelled as Mozart’s Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), a bravura assignment Leontyne never attempted. As far as I know, Margaret never took on La Forza del destino, one of Leontyne’s specialties. Her favorite Verdi assignment was Elisabetta in Don Carlo, never to be Leontyne’s lot.

Margaret Price’s discography is extensive and covers the breadth of her repertoire. The YouTube clips referenced in this post give some idea of the clarity and extraordinary texture of her voice but, alas, cannot reproduce the magic of her sound as it was heard live.

Margaret often said that she became a singer because she loved lieder. The first clip is Mahler’s song “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I Am so Lost to the World),” based on a poem by Friedrich Rückert. Here is a translation of the last lines: “I am now dead to the world's commotion/ And, resting in this silent retreat,/ I live alone in my own heaven,/ In my own loving, in my own song.” The soprano captures the touching introspection of the piece and engages in a haunting duet with the often repeated English horn solo.

Mozart was a key figure in Margaret Price’s early success and enduring career. She
made her debut in the mezzo-soprano role of Cherubino before moving upward to the
challenging soprano leads of Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. Many theatres heard her Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro. Here is the great Act III aria “Dove sono I bei momenti (Where have all those happy moments gone)” from a 1984 live concert in San Francisco. Price conveys the agitation of the recitative, then the Contessa’s sad reflection on her happy past, when she was certain of the love of her philandering husband and, finally, in the spirited cabaletta, on her hope to regain it. Of note, in addition to the stunning quality of Price’s timbre, is the rhythmic precision of her phrasing and embellishments and the perfection of her attacks, all serving the
vivid expression of mood and character.

Margret Price sang Verdi frequently, unleashing the opulence of her voice in the expansive melodramatics of his scores. Her favorite Verdi role, Elisabetta, calls upon the wealth of the soprano’s resources as she addresses the tomb of Charlemagne (“Tu, che le vanità conoscesti del mondo [You have known the vanities of this world]”), lamenting her lost love, Don Carlo, her loveless marriage to his father, King Philip, and her hope to protect Carlo from Philip’s wrath. Price, the impeccable singer of lieder and the classical Mozart stylist, is also an authentically demonstrative Verdian spinto. The clip is from a 1986 concert conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.

The most surprising excerpt in this post comes from a complete recording of Tristan and Isolde. Isolde is a role that calls for the sturdiest lungs, the greatest volume, the strength of a Kirsten Flagstad, Helen Traubel, Birgit Nilsson, to name only its most illustrious exponents at the Metropolitan Opera. Margaret Price, who never considered herself a Wagnerian or a dramatic soprano, of course never agreed to sing Isolde live, on stage; she did answer the call of conductor Carlos Kleiber to commit the role to a recording. Here, her “beautiful,” young, lyric voice gives subtle and revelatory expression to Wagner’s Irish princess. For many, it is the definitive recorded Isolde. The “Liebestod,” is a fitting climax to Price’s unerring traversal of Isolde’s journey.

 

PS: Margaret Price even excels in Puccini, as you will hear in this excerpt from a complete recording of Turandot, conducted by Roberto Abbado (nephew of Claudio Abbado). She sings, of course, Liù, not the title role. Here is her touching rendition of the Act III aria, “Tu, che di gel sei cinta, (You, who are girdled in ice).”

 

Puccini’s La Rondine: The Swallow Returns

 

It took La Rondine many decades to stake out a secure place in the repertoire of the world’s opera houses. The work’s birth was troubled. In 1913, Puccini was approached by a prestigious Viennese theatre to create songs for an operetta. The terms were favorable, but the composer soon transformed the commission into his preferred form, a sung-through opera. The Great War intervened and Italy and Austria became enemy belligerents. The 1917 premiere of La Rondine therefore took place in neutral Monte Carlo; the leads were the marvelous Gilda dalla Rizza and Tito Schipa.

Puccini, famous for revisions to his scores, changed the register of the secondary tenor, the poet Prunier, to baritone, then back again to tenor, also adding an aria for the tenor lead, Ruggero. This version did not succeed at Vienna’s Volksoper in 1920.

Subsequently, and with difficulty, La Rondine found its present ending: Magda, the former mistress of a rich Parisian, is thought “virtuous” by the naive Ruggero. She decides to return to her protector, thereby leaving her beloved young lover rather than marry him under the weight of her shady past. The similarities to Verdi’s La Traviata, without the tragic conclusion, are evident.

Puccini’s hummable score brims with the waltz and other dance rhythms and provides lilting melodies to the two couples, Magda and Ruggero, and Prunier and Magda’s maid, Lisette. Magda is a rich opportunity for a lyric soprano with an easy top register and access to floating pianissimos, both attributes called for in Act I. Each of her two arias reflects on her own life and desire.

The first, “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta potè indovinar? (Who could guess the beautiful dream of Doretta?),” tells the story of Doretta who prefers the kiss of a poor student to that of a king. There is a plethora of lovely versions of this aria on YouTube. Among the very best is Anna Moffo’s, with its creamy timbre and perfectly judged acuti (high notes). The clip is drawn from the opera’s 1966 complete recording, conducted by Francesco Molinari Pradelli.

Near the conclusion of Act I, Magda recalls an evening when she found romance at the famous dance hall, Bal Bullier. Here are "Che il bel sogno" and “Ore dolci e divine (Sweet and Divine Hours)” from Leontyne Price’s 1971 recital disk, conducted by Edward Downes. Price’s soft-grained rendition reminds us that, had she chosen, she would have been one of the greatest lyric sopranos of the 20^th century instead of the era’s preeminent Verdi dramatic soprano.

 

 

 In search of true love, Magda runs off to the Bal Bullier where, in Act II, she and Ruggero fall in love. The tenor launches one of the most thrilling ensembles in all Puccini: “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso (I drink to your young smile).” Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu are the principal artists in this performance.

 

P.S.

Highly recommended are these two selections found on YouTube:

The touching final scene in which Magda leaves Ruggero: “No! Non lasciarmi solo! (Don’t leave me alone!)” The clip is from the telecast of a live New York City Opera performance starring Elizabeth Knighton and Jon Garrison.

 

Lucrezia Bori was the Met’s first and only Magda between 1929 and 1936. Here, her art and charm survive despite poor sound unflattering to her brilliant timbre. The clip ("Ore dolci, divine")

 

 

 is from a 1937 recording, made after her retirement from opera.

 

  

 

 

 

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The Verdi Requiem: "Opera in Ecclesiastical Dress"

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On December 2 the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast was devoted to the company’s 53^rd iteration of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem. The Requiem was first performed at the Met in 1901 on the occasion of the composer’s death; he had died earlier that year. Among those similarly honored in memoriam have been John Kennedy in 1964 and Luciano Pavarotti in 2008. This season’s edition was dedicated to the recently deceased baritone, Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

Verdi’s masterwork has a complex genesis. It was born when Verdi proposed that a requiem mass be forged in tribute to Gioacchino Rossini who died in 1868. Each section, according to the plan he presented to his editor, Ricordi, would be assigned to a contemporary Italian composer of opera or sacred music, thirteen in all, and all now largely forgotten with the exception of Verdi himself. The Rossini requiem was scheduled for premiere in 1869, then cancelled and not performed until 1988 in Stuttgart; it has been recorded and can be accessed on Youtube. Just a few years later, with the 1873 death of Alessandro Manzoni, author of the epic nineteenth-century novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), Verdi determined to compose a requiem on his own. He conducted his opus in 1874 on the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death in the church of San Marco in Milan. The second performance took place soon thereafter at La Scala. Verdi toured his Requiem to theatres and auditoriums in Paris, London, and Venice.

In fact, the Requiem, scored as for grand opera, replete with a large orchestra and chorus and four soloists, had not been meant for a liturgical setting. As Verdi contemporary, conductor Hans Von Bülow, quipped, here was an “Opera in ecclesiastical dress.”

Towards the end of second section, the “Dies irae,” is the tenor aria “Ingemisco” which carries with it the indelible imprint of Verdi’s late manner. The despair of the sinner, mitigated by his hope for redemption, is powerfully expressed through the repetition of first-person pronouns.

Ingemisco tamquam reus,                                          I groan, as one who is accused,

culpa rubet vultus meus,                                            guilt reddens my check;

supplicanti parce, Deus.                                              spare Thy supplicant, O God.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,                                                Thou who absolved Mary,

et latronem exaudisti,                                                 and harkened to the thief,

mihi quoque spem dedisti.                                         Has given hope to me.

Preces meae non sunt dignae,                                    My prayers are worthless,

sed tu bonus fac benigne,                                           but Thou, who art good and kind,

ne perenni cremer igne.                                              Rescue me from everlasting fire.

Inter oves locum praesta,                                           With Thy sheep give me a place,

et ab hoedis me sequestra,                                         and from the goats keep me separate,

statuens in parte dextra.                                            Placing me at Thy right hand.

We have chosen the “Ingemisco” from a 1970 performance of the Requiem conducted by Leonard Bernstein. The singer is Placido Domingo early in his long career, his voice fresh, clarion, and alert to the drama.

Immediately following “Ingemisco” is “Lacrymosa,” scored for the four soloists and chorus. The text of the prayer is drawn not from scripture but from a poem by a 13^th-century Franciscan monk, Thomas of Celano, and the infinite sadness of the music is intoned not by a single voice but by the weaving of multiple voices conventional in liturgical music.

Lacrymosa dies illa,                                                     Tearful that day shall be

qua resurget ex favilla,                                               when from the ashes shall arise

judicandus homo reus.                                                Guilty man to be judged.

Huic ergo parce, Deus,                                                Spare him the, O God,

pie Jesu Domine,                                                         gentle Lord Jesus,

dona eis requiem. Amen.                                            Grant him eternal rest. Amen

This “Lacrymosa,” recorded in 1967, is sung by a quartet of singers at their peak, Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciano Pavarotti, and Nicolai Ghiaurov. Herbert von Karajan conducts the chorus and orchestra of La Scala.

The Requiem concludes with “Libera me,” a prayer not integral to the mass itself; it is intended to be pronounced after the funeral. Like “Ingemisco,” “Libera me” is a first-person supplication, an expression of individual terror in the face of death and the wrath of God.

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna,                      Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death

in die illa tremenda,                                                    on that dreadful day,

quando coeli movendi sunt et terra,                          when the heavens and earth shall be moved,

dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.               when Thou shall come to judge the world by fire.

Tremens factus sum ego et timeo,                             I am full of fear and I tremble,

dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira.                  awaiting the day of account and wrath to come.

Dies irae, dies illa,                                                       Day of wrath, day of mourning,

calamitatis et miseriae,                                               day of calamity and misery,

dies magna et amara valde.                                       that day great and most bitter.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,                      Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.                                          and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Verdi is at his most operatic in this, the last section of the Requiem. The composer awards the highly emotional aria to the soprano. He demands a two-octave range deployed in extreme contrasts of high and low, loud and soft. The “Verdi soprano” descends to her low C again and again; she caps the piece with a high C unfurled above the thundering chorus; she floats the middle section in an ethereal pianissimo, ending with an octave vault to a perilous high B-flat. In a concert from the 1982 Ediburgh Festival, superlatively conducted by Claudio Abbado, we hear Welsh soprano Margaret Price. When at her best, as Price is here, there was no one better. She invests her famously pure timbre with a dramatic urgency that conveys the full measure of fearsome awe at the final judgement.

Met Galas 2: Star Power, 1966/2017

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In our latest post, we sketched the Met careers of so many remarkable artists who participated in the 1966 gala--or might have, and evoked the names of their illustrious predecessors seated on the stage throughout the celebration. In the present post, we scroll back to the gala concert of this past May and contrast it with the gala produced half a century earlier. We are interested in presentation, repertoire, and roster above all. This comparison is telling in gauging the relative strength of the company’s brand then and now.

First, presentation. On the set of Tannhäuser’s Hall of Song, the 1966 gala arrayed thirty-one retired stars who answered a roll call, each taking a place on the stage to the cheers of the crowd. The history of the Metropolitan back to Giovanni Martinelli’s 1913 debut paraded before an audience attuned to the emotional pitch of the occasion. And as the honored guests made their entrances, a section of the chorus also seated on the stage rose in tribute: the sopranos for Elisabeth Rethberg and Marjorie Lawrence, the altos for Marian Anderson and Risë Stevens, the tenors for Martinelli and Richard Crooks, the basses for Alexander Kipnis, and so on in homage to these and many, many more beloved principals of the past. When Lotte Lehmann walked in, everyone stood.

By way of contrast, at the 2017 gala former stars whose performances had deeply touched the audience seated in the house were absent from the proceedings. Replacing the collective memory of treasured evenings embodied by the artists in full view, video clips of more than two dozen productions were seen in projections. The visuals served as backdrops for the live performers. And the music was interrupted by clips from interviews with luminaries such as Leontyne Price, James Levine, and Marc Chagall. This filmed material was an inescapable referent to Peter Gelb’s promotion of production, direction and design, and of his focus on the Met as a media platform. But it did little to foreground voice and interpretation, the stuff that draws fervent operagoing. The affective impact of the 1966 roll call was largely lost.

An intriguing parenthesis: On October 23, 1983, on the occasion of its 100^th birthday, the company threw itself a two-part gala, matinee and evening. In the very final segment, a phalanx of former Met stars constituted an onstage audience once again. What in the world could Zinka Milanov have been thinking as she sat just feet away from Price and Luciano Pavarotti, at their absolute best in the act 2 duet of Un Ballo in maschera? And what could Eleanor Steber have been feeling during Kiri Te Kanawa’s “Dove sono”? When the final curtain rose, the dozens and dozens of artists crammed on the stage struck a deeply moving tableau of the Met past and present.

In 1966, retired stars were visible on the stage from the beginning to the end of the concert; in 1983, their presence was invited only for the final segment of the evening show; and in 2017, they had no role at all, save for the fleeting images of a chosen few on the big screen.

With regard to programming, in large measure the 1966 and 2017 galas are similarly conceived. Undisputed chestnuts dominate both bills. The crucial expansions of the repertoire into the baroque, the Slavic, and the contemporary wings, championed by James Levine (see our book, Grand Opera: The Story of the Met), are only marginally present, testimony perhaps to the unflagging desire of a well-heeled public for the familiar hits of the operatic core.

And finally, if the metrics of star power in a given epoch are difficult to determine, the depth of any opera company’s principal asset, its roster, is not. Take, for example, the sopranos who participated in the 1966 gala. Eight had already or would one day be cast as Mimì in La Bohème, the title most frequently performed at the Met: Kirsten, Albanese, Tebaldi, Mary Curtis-Verna, Teresa Stratas, Steber, Caballé, Gabriella Tucci. Among the artists who sang in the 2017 concert only Kristine Opolais, Sonya Yoncheva, and Anna Netrebko had taken on this iconic role. And to date, only Netrebko has shown the box-office appeal of Licia Albanese, Renata Tebaldi, or Montserrat Caballé. There were eight Carmens onstage in 1966; in 2017, Elina Garanca was the sole artist to have sung Bizet’s eternal gypsy.

Many factors combine to explain the downward trend in attendance that has haunted Gelb’s Met. In 2015-2016, ticket sales fell to 66% of capacity. In the late 1990s, capacity was at 90%. During the final seasons at the Old Met, the “Sold Out” sign was a frequent disappointment to eager ticket seekers. Our close look at two galas separated by fifty years tells us that the decline in the number of bankable divas and divos bears a large share of responsibility for the company’s perilous fiscal straits.

But while the breadth and depth of the 1966 roster is a far cry from that available to the current Met management, the 2017 gala featured several stars who would have shone on any stage at any time. Here in concert and in commercial recordings are Joseph Calleja, Sonya Yoncheva, Elina Garanča, and Joyce DiDonato in the same arias they sang this past May.

Calleja, who has been with the company more than ten years, will be in the lustrous cast of Norma that opens the 2017-2018 season. The immediately recognizable quality of his vibrant timbre and the security of his range are displayed in Rodolfo’s “Che gelida manina.”

Sonya Yoncheva made her company debut as Gilda in 2013. Since then she has excelled in the lyric and spinto roles of Violetta, Desdemona, and Mimì.  In this “Mi chiamano Mimì” we hear her fresh and persuasive phrasing. La Bohème is one of three operas starring Yoncheva to be telecast “Live in HD” in 2017-2018. The others are Verdi’s Luisa Miller and Puccini’s Tosca.

Elina Garanča is familiar to the Met’s worldwide audiences from her performances in the “HD Live” telecasts of Carmen and Cenerentola. Her refined rendition of “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” is a riposte to the excess of many Dalilas.

Featured in next season’s new productions of Norma and Massenet’s Cendrillon is Joyce DiDonato. Here she delivers a stunning “Bel raggio lusinghier” from Rossini’s Semiramide. As always, the mezzo bends her bravura technique to her portrayal of the character.

Met Galas 1: Star Power, 1966/2017

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The 2016-2017 Met season ended on May 13 with a performance of Franco Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac. A week earlier the company had put on an anniversary gala in celebration of its fifty years at Lincoln Center.

In this post, we describe, following first-hand reports and recordings of the event (much of which can be heard on Youtube), a comparably glittering evening, the farewell of 1966. In comparing that gala to the recent 50th anniversary commemoration we take a close look at the staging, the repertoire, and most particularly, on the roster of stars. This comparison, that we will pursue further in our next post, may be useful in shedding light on the straits in which the company finds itself today.

At eight o’clock on April 16, 1966, the curtain came up on the farewell concert at the Old Met on 39^th Street and Broadway; it came down at 1:25 the next morning. The program featured no fewer than fifty-seven artists, among them scores of now legendary Met names. Some, such as Dorothy Kirsten, Robert Merrill, and Regina Resnik, who had begun their careers under the regime of the former general manager during the 1940s, would go on to sing at the new Met. Especially moving were the turns of those for whom this would be the last hurrah. A long ovation greeted Licia Albanese’s “Un bel dì”; to shouts of “Save the Met,” she kissed her fingers and bent to touch the floor. Another was for Eleanor Steber as Vanessa. This line from Samuel Barber’s quintet was no doubt achingly poignant: “Let me look around once more. Who knows when I shall see this house again!” The most thunderous applause was reserved for Zinka Milanov. Near the end of the concert, with Richard Tucker, she sang the final duet from Andrea Chénier. Bravos mixed with cries of “We love you, Zinka” lasted a full five minutes.

Dorothy Kirsten’s selection was “Depuis le jour.” Here she sings the aria from Louise in a commerical recording. Kirsten’s value to the company was alrewady evident in the 1947-1948 revival of Charpentier’s opera. In this clip, the soprano exhibits the impeccable technique that would serve her through more than thirty years at the Met, the purity of her silvery timbre, and the ease with which she floats the notes in the upper register.

It came as no surprise that Licia Albanese chose “Un bel dì” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the opera in which she made her Met debut in 1940. Cio-Cio-Sanxx became her signature role; she sang it last  in 1965-1966, the season that marked her farewell together with that of the Old Met. This rendition of the aria, from a 1958 recording of the complete opera, gives a sense of the urgency and passion that were Albanese’s trademark.

The gala served also as a showcase for the first sixteen years of general manager Rudolf Bing’s regime and more specifically for the artists he had contracted during his tenure: Cesare Siepi, Nicolai Gedda, Jon Vickers, Régine Crespin, James McCracken, Teresa Stratas. Siepi made his company debut as King Philip in Verdi’s Don Carlo on the triumphant opening night of Bing’s first season, 1950-1951. He immediately established himself as the Met’s leading bass and held that position for more than twenty years. Philip’s majesterial xx aria, “Elle giammai m’amò,” was his to sing at the gala. As we hear in this 1970 televised concert in Cologne, his velvet timbre and seemless legato remained intact.

When Jon Vickers sang in Die Walküre, audiences could forget that, beginning in the second half of the 20^th century, Wagner singing began the decline that continues to this day. This 1963 concert performance of Siegmund’s ecastatic “Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond,” his contribution to the 1966 gala, captures the tenor at his intense, compelling best, his timbre brilliant, his immersion in the music complete.

Five of the superstars Bing had brought to the Met were also on the program: Renata Tebaldi, Franco Corelli, Birgit Nilsson, Montserrat Caballé, Leontyne Price. The Bing era coincided with Price’s ascension to the very peak of international stardom. Here, in a 1963 excerpt from the televised “Voice of Firestone,” she reprises Leonora’s “D’amor sulle ali rosee” from Il Trovatore, the opera of her company debut in 1961, as she did again in the 1963 concert. Shimmering tone, ease of emission, grandeur, and Verdian style are at her bid with an authority available to very few.

A number of dazzling newcomers in 1965-1966 who would figure prominently on future rosters. Grace Bumbry, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, James King, Alfredo Kraus, Sherrill Milnes, and Renata Scotto, were not present at the April 1966 adieu. There were other, even more notable absences, Lauritz Melchior and Helen Traubel, both of whom had had bitter clashes with Bing. Then there were the stars Bing drew to the Met who had shone brightly and then had disappeared for various reasons in the years before the gala. Joan Sutherland had left in 1964 of her own volition and would return in 1966–1967. Antonietta Stella was dismissed after just four seasons, likely because she challenged the general manager’s interdiction of the solo bow. Cesare Valletti had been let go for reasons still obscure. Victoria de los Angeles was offended when Bing chose Eileen Farrell for Manuel de Falla’s Atlantida. Farrell herself (not a Bing favorite) sang only forty-seven Met performances, a total that would have been far greater had she taken on the Wagnerian heroines to which she was so splendidly suited. The most glaring absence at the farewell was the voice of the most famous diva of all, that of Maria Callas.