This recording is the third of Lully's Armide; the other two, from 1983 (Erato) and 1992 (Harmonia Mundi), were led by Philippe Herreweghe. The first, which I've not heard, eliminated the opera's fourth act, in which minor characters are tempted by Armide and the plot is otherwise not advanced. The second recording, starring Guillaumette Laurens and Howard Crook as Armide and Renaud, is complete and is an elegant reading, with some fire from Laurens.

The Washington, DC-based Opera Lafayette's recording under consideration here is trimmed. Gone is the Prologue, which is the usual love poem to Louis XIV that these operas called for, this one with the allegorical figures of Wisdom and Glory praising him to the skies. It contains some lovely music, but is superfluous to the plot; it was cut as early as 1761 (probably a political rather than musical decision; in any event Louis never saw the work). Conductor Ryan Brown also chops a few repeats in the dances, one of the Shepherd's arias, and a few minutes of the fourth act. I didn't miss any of it, dramatically, but it's nice to know it can be heard on Herreweghe's second recording. Brown gives us two hours of cohesive music-drama.

The plot is well-known, and in fact the same libretto (by Phillippe Quinault) was set by Gluck in 1776 (the Lully dates from 1686). Opera lovers also will be familiar with the Rossini and Handel operas that treat the story of the sorceress Armida's infatuation with the knight, Rinaldo; there are variations, but the outlines are the same.

Lully's opera, his last, was a great and lasting success, what with demons destroying enchanted palaces and all, and with music that never ceases to please. Both leads are well drawn, with Armide's wickedness on a grand scale (her love for Renaud almost enough for us to feel for her) and Renaud's valor and sweetness displayed in equal proportion. The dance intervals are colorfully scored and utterly delightful.

The stars of this set, the mezzo Stephanie Houtzeel and tenor Robert Getchell, are excellent. She has plenty of character to her tone, sings with nice ferocity in her second-act "Enfin il est en ma puissance", charm in the fifth-act love duet, and both resignation and fury in her final number. The voice is substantial, and while she never resorts to chest voice, a good snarl occasionally slips out. Laurens has only a slight edge over Houtzeel; the former is more comfortable with ornamentation and dramatic stresses.

No apologies need be made for Robert Getchell, a "French" tenor of the best kind, heroically "bright" enough and gently loving enough, singing with fine French diction. And his tone is beautiful. (A note: He studied with Howard Crook.) The cast's other standout, tenor Tony Boutté, sings a Danish Knight (some of his music is omitted in Act 4) and a Lucky Lover and I'm sure he will soon be graduating to the role of Renaud. His voice sits high and is clear enough for Gluck's Orphée as well.

William Sharp uses his not-very-weighty baritone voice to enliven La Haine, and he means every word. As Armide's confidantes, Ann Monoyios and Miram Dubrow are effective, though the latter strays from pitch early on as Sidonie. François Loup, doing double duty as Hidraot, Armide's wicked uncle, and Ubalde, Renaud's good friend, oversings as the former to compensate for a tone not quite large enough. The others are all excellent.

I wish that Ryan Brown's orchestra were bigger; there are some moments in this work that require more sheer noise than 27 players can make (and they don't always play at once). Herreweghe gets it just right and the drama seems properly dark despite the inherent frills. To sum up, not only is this set the only one currently available, it's a bargain and very good all around. You'll miss about 30 minutes of music, but the two hours you do get are splendid.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

The opening salvo of Wagner's tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), Das Rheingold establishes immediately the epic nature of Wagner's intentions in a epochal tale that owes much to Old Norse and Icelandic sagas. Featuring the acclaimed conductor Jaap Van Zweeden with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, this production is graced with the presence of noted soloists such as Matthias Goerne, Kwangchul Youn, Eri Nakamura and Michelle DeYoung, among others.

REVIEW:

My feelings about this release are many and complicated. It is the last in the long-running Opera in English series made and compiled by Chandos, as funding from the philanthropic Peter Moore’s Foundation ends this year. If nothing else this is a fine studio recording of Verdi’s Macbeth , well sung and conducted, and special praise goes to Chandos for shoehorning the whole work on to two discs with the ballet and both the 1847 and 1865 endings. If you want Verdi’s youthful masterpiece sung in English, there is no competition (and I doubt there will ever be). But are there many of us who still want Verdi in English? Did we ever?


I am surprised the series lasted as long as it did, to be honest. Studio sets of Italian opera in German ended in the late 1980s (with EMI-Electrola’s La bohème , I believe) and if people sneered that Verdi in German sounded like a grotesque Bavarian drinking song, then singing it in English only makes Joe Green sound like Gilbert and Sullivan. Whereas a theater can argue a case for producing opera in the vernacular (a sense of immediacy, or “relevance” and “inclusivity” if you want to sound like every marketing department), listening to opera in translation on CD only emphasizes two fallacies: The original sound the composer had in mind has gone and diction remains too murky to forgo the printed libretto. Diction is a contentious issue especially with regard to the English National Opera, whose remit was rendered pointless ever since it put in surtitles. In the singers’ defense, the crisp enunciation of the Golden Age was due to the drier acoustic of their former home at Sadler’s Wells. The airy Coliseum is a tough venue to project text, yet in the case of John Tomlinson, Lisa Milne, or even Lesley Garrett, not impossible. Some blame also has to go to the post-Julie Andrews fashion for favoring a smooth, creamy vocal line ahead of clear text. It is a problem that neither the Coliseum nor Chandos ever resolved.


My personal view is that the ties between Chandos and the ENO were not tight enough. The gems of this catalog (The Goodall Ring , Janet Baker’s Massenet and Handel) tend to be live from the theater or, like Richard Hickox’s fabulous Britten recordings, in the original language. What amazes me is how little of the English National Opera there is on DVD, especially when its reputation hangs more on provocative visuals rather than ultimate casts. A phenomenal show like Richard Jones’s technicolor Lulu would be highly desirable on DVD, yet again and again the Peter Moores Foundation thought it better to spend money and record the opera in the studio.


Although the studio sets wisely paired familiar stars with the younger ensemble names, there is a palpable feeling of redundancy when there is no production to link it to. The English National Opera still struggles (although it is currently having a terrific run of hits, be it accessible new opera from Julian Anderson or celebrity-led stagings such as Terry Gilliam’s Benvenuto Cellini ) and with the demise of this series, London’s second opera company has lost yet another media outlet. With its reputation as the youthful, funky alternative to Covent Garden, the English National Opera “Power House” years were at a time when a terrestrial TV station was prepared to broadcast these “sexy,” Postmodern stagings at prime time, so the idea of a corresponding opera set still made sense. I can’t help feeling sad, but times have changed, and Chandos would be better off producing DVDs from the Coliseum.


Anyway, enough of my polemic. How good is this new Macbeth ? With no corresponding audience who want a memory of what they saw, this new studio recording hangs on the star casting of Simon Keenlyside, a welcome but again slightly redundant choice given that you can hear and see his troubled psychopath (in the original Italian) on a fine DVD from Covent Garden conducted by Antonio Pappano. Good as he is here, I do think Keenlyside is best when seen and heard (I don’t say that about many singers) as he is one of opera’s few truly visceral actors. In the cold glare of the studio he gives us a carefully modulated reading, text aware and utterly precise, but just a little bland and unvaried. I do like his creepy chuckle when plotting Banquo’s demise, and such diligence and caution fits the weak and corruptible Thane. Although a bit small for Verdi, his sense of line is good, and he knows his vocal limits, although the tone is getting gritty when pushed.


Nevertheless, he is a good foil to Latonia Moore’s gleaming Lady Macbeth, a fine portrayal which is really worth getting excited about. There’s the she-devil steel to her voice, but she sings her runs cleanly and is equally fearless in the more soaring passages. Her sleepwalking scene, here taken much faster than usual, is especially chilling and fanatical. Only her diction under pressure is wanting, otherwise she holds her own against such luminaries as Fiorenza Cossotto and Shirley Verrett. The rest of the cast are generally fine. In the comfort of the studio Brindley Sharratt’s lightish bass makes enough impression as Banquo, with a very fine account of his aria and Gwyn Hughes Jones is an adequate Macduff. Comprimario roles are well taken, creating a tight, well dramatized ensemble. Having both endings really is a selling point, but I’m personally torn between which I prefer. Verdi’s reworked version has a much better battle but ends with that ludicrous, jaunty, “everything’s fine” chorus, and we lose Macbeth’s chilling final aria, here sung as “I have sinned.” Listeners will find themselves flitting between the two.


Edward Gardner gets superb work from his ENO forces. In the barn-like Coliseum, this young charismatic figurehead has failed to live up to his initial promise, as his readings have often been sluggish, if polished, so this urgent, propulsive account of Macbeth is a real surprise. His tempos go to both extremes, galloping through the jaunty choruses, or giving a deliciously creepy, lugubrious account of the overture, but he understands the overreaching arc of the opera. Ensembles are built up to thrillingly and there is no sense of a static studio run-through. There is good work too from the pickup chorus (The English National Opera chorus must have been busy elsewhere), full of young London-based names, great and good.


Recorded at the Blackheath Halls, the sound is full but cavernous. It lends the production a suitably empty feel for the bleak setting, but some orchestral detail is lost to the closely miked singers. Documentation is up to the usual, thorough standard of this series, with a typically fine essay from Mike Ashman. So, this is worth buying, if only to mark the end of an era. It is a very good performance with a standout Lady Macbeth, but ever so slightly redundant in an age of surtitles, live recording, and at a time when London’s opera in the vernacular struggles to show its face in this harsh multimedia world. It is hard not to feel sad when every new opera set on CD feels like a penultimate nail in the coffin, but this set announces two demises, and I’m not really talking about Verdi’s multiple endings.


FANFARE: Barnaby Rayfield

"When the Wigmore Hall Live label released an archival recording of a 1998 recital by the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson last year, it raised the hope of more such posthumous finds. And just as that hope had begun to fade, here comes another treasure, this one unearthed from the archives of Emmanuel Music in Boston.

As it happens, this release serves as tribute not only to Hunt Lieberson, who died in 2006, but also to her frequent close collaborator Craig Smith, the founder of Emmanuel Music, who died in November. And the material is choice: spacious arias from two Bach cantatas and extended excerpts from Handel’s oratorio “Hercules.”

The disc begins with a 1992 recording of the aria “Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder” from Bach’s Cantata No. 30: Something of a tease as the opening instrumental passage heightens the anticipation of Hunt Lieberson’s entrance, more than two minutes into the disc. But that glorious Voice, when it appears, meets every expectation.

The “Hercules” excerpts, from 1999, trace the travails of the hero’s wife, Dejanira, culminating in a harrowing mad scene.... Although Hunt Lieberson’s compelling stage presence added mightily to any performance, the voice alone amply conveys her characteristic intensity here....

Dare we hope for more?"

– James R. Oestreich, New York Times [8/10/2008]

The early death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson deprived the world of an exceptional artist and one, moreover, who left all too few commercial recordings. However, some archive recordings are now beginning to emerge and this new release, featuring previously unissued live recordings is one such. The CD also forms a tribute to one of her mentors, Craig Smith, Music Director at Emmanuel Church, Boston from 1970 until his death in November 2007 at the age of sixty.

Smith founded Emmanuel Music, which, besides fulfilling a liturgical function at the church, evolved also into a concert ensemble of no little distinction. Perhaps Smith’s greatest achievement was to inaugurate the practice whereby each Sunday between October and April, the main Sunday morning church service includes a cantata by Bach appropriate to the day. That tradition continues to this day and later this year the thirty-ninth consecutive season of liturgical cantatas will commence.

It was through Emmanuel Music that the then Lorraine Hunt took some of the first steps on her solo singing career and she maintained the connection, I believe, for the rest of her life, including appearances in the Sunday cantata series. This disc, therefore, takes us back to her singing roots.

The disc begins and ends with arias taken, I presume, from complete Sunday service performances of Bach cantatas. The aria "Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder" comes from the cantata Freue dich, erlöste schar, written for the feast of St. John the Baptist. Alfred Dürr writes thus of the cantata: "The underlying mood is joyful, relaxed and unproblematical, not only in the opening chorus but in the four arias, where a dance-like style is often clearly evident." Unfortunately, to judge by this aria at least, Craig Smith seems to have a different conception. Presumably with the agreement of his soloist, he sets and extremely slow tempo and the aria lasts 8:46.

This sent me scurrying to my shelves for comparisons. John Eliot Gardiner, in his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage performance takes a mere 5:27 but he is surely too fleet – at his pace the aria sounds like a gambol through the Elysian meadows. So that might seem to suggest that Smith is "simply" old fashioned in his conception. But turn to Fritz Werner’s 1971 performance and you find a tempo that seems to me to be just right – he takes 6:03. Beside Werner I’m afraid Smith sounds laboured. What saves the performance is the sheer beauty and inwardness of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s singing. On its own terms the performance is quite lovely and no admirer of the singer will be disappointed but I just think the basic conception is wrong.

Things are much more satisfactory in the other Bach aria, which is placed at the opposite end of the programme. This aria is from the cantata Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, which is for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. Again, Miss Hunt Lieberson’s singing is beautiful and communicative and this time the pace is much more sensible, I think. The conductor here is the composer, John Harbison, who has also had a long association with Emmanuel Music and who, in fact, is currently the Acting Artistic Director. He adopts a slow pace, but this aria can take it. Again comparisons were instructive. Eliot Gardiner’s tempo is almost identical and he takes exactly as long as does Harbison. Werner didn’t record this cantata but another celebrated Bach traditionalist, Karl Richter, did. In his 1976/7 recording he takes 9:34 but his soloist, Julia Hamari, sounds cool besides either of her rivals and she and Richter, whose direction is smooth and relaxed, convey no real sense of trepidation. Nathalie Stutzmann, for Eliot Gardiner, is perhaps a touch more inward than Hunt Lieberson but she’s equally involving and it’s only by the merest whisker that I come down in favour of this present, excellent performance.

The remainder of the disc is devoted to excerpts from Handel’s oratorio, Hercules and these excerpts contain all the music for Dejanira, the wife of the eponymous hero. I presume, though it’s not clear from the documentation, that these extracts are taken from a live account of the complete work.

The role of Dejanira is an exceptionally demanding one, both vocally and emotionally. She is, in Craig Smith’s words, a "monumental character." I can well imagine that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was a pretty formidable presence in the performance of the oratorio for these extracts show us a vivid character portrayal.

In her first aria, "The world when day’s career is run," she is fully the grief-stricken wife, yet she still retains dignity. Much of Dejanira’s music is in moderate or slow tempo but when swifter music arrives, in "Begone, my fears, fly, hence, away," Miss Hunt Lieberson excels in the passagework.

As her jealousy of the captive princess, Iole, begins to take hold and her certainty that Hercules has been unfaithful increases there’s great sadness in the aria ‘When beauty sorrow’s liv’ry wears’ and that is splendidly conveyed here. Particularly outstanding is the account of "Cease, ruler of the day, to rise," where the singing is particularly expressive. Writing of this disc elsewhere, but of another aria in the programme, the critic Michael Kennedy spoke of Miss Hunt Lieberson’s "power to humanise every note and bring the music to new life." How I agree and I’d say that this comment applies even more strongly to this deep aria.

The final excerpt is the Mad Scene. Here Miss Hunt Lieberson is intensely dramatic without ever going overboard. This is extremely demanding music and she performs it vividly and, once again, when the divisions arise she displays fine vocal agility. Hers is a tremendous performance of this recitative and aria and, unsurprisingly, it sparks an ovation from the audience who, otherwise, are commendably silent throughout.

These extracts contain some superb Handel singing. Frequently I was reminded of Dame Janet Baker’s assumption of Handelian roles and I can pay no higher compliment than that.

Despite my reservation over the one Bach item – a reservation that does not concern the singing per se – this is a superb disc that all admirers of this much-missed singer will want to have. And if you’ve not heard Lorraine Hunt Lieberson before, buy this disc and discover for yourself what all the fuss is about.

– John Quinn, MusicWeb International

This live recording of Wagner’s great opera Tristan und Isolde was recorded in August of 1958.; Wolfgang Windgassen, who champions the role of Tristan, was known for his powerful voice and successful performances in Wagner operas. He is often considered the most accomplished Wagner tenor of the twentieth century.; Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson was also a Wagner specialist, along with works from Strauss. Her voice is remembered for its force and brilliance in the upper register.