Sunday Classics preview: Maureen Forrester -- one of the least replaceable singers of my time

Maureen Forrester sings Orfeo's great aria "Che farò senza Euridice" from Orfeo ed Euridice (which we've heard before), in a 1966 Italian Radio performance with the RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mario Rossi.

by Ken

I can't explain it, and I'm not going to try. Not too much anyhow.

On my watch here some notable singers have passed on. Beverly Sills and Luciano Pavarotti come to mind. And I didn't feel anywhere near as bad as with the passing of the great Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester, who as I noted last week died June 16, at 79, after a lost battle with Alzheimer's.

She wasn't the most text-penetratingly brilliant of performers, but in compensation there was that almost unfailing expressivity of her voice, that rarest of modern birds a true contralto, deep and full and plush. It was a voice that, given the precise control its owner exercised over it, was supremely well-suited to baroque music, where she toiled extensively and ever so beautifully. But of course that uniquely rich sound was ideally suited to romantic repertory as well.

Tonight we hear samples of both, and then a sample of one of her -- and music lovers' -- later career pleasures.


HANDEL: Julius Caesar: "Piangerò la sorte mia"

CLEOPATRA: I shall weep for my fate,
so cruel and so evil,
as long as I have life in my breast.

But then in death, from every side,
my death will prod the tyrant
night and day.

Maureen Forrester, contralto; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Robert Zeller, cond. Westminster/CBC, recorded May 1964


WAGNER: Wesendonck-Lieder: No. 5, "Träume" ("Dreams")

Say what wondrous dreams
hold my soul captive,
that have not, like empty foam,
disappeared into bleak nothingness?

Dreams that in every hour,
every day, bloom fairer,
and with their heavenly tidings
float blissfully through my spirit!

Dreams that like noble rays
penetrate the soul,
there to paint an eternal picture:
all-forgiving, single-minded.

Dreams that when the spring sun
kisses blossoms from the snow,
so that to never-imagined bliss
they greet the new day,

so that they grow, that they bloom;
dreaming, cast their scent,
gently glow and fade on your breast,
and then sink into the grave.

Maureen Forrester, contralto; John Newmark, piano. CBC, recorded March 1-9, 1968


GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: Iolanthe: "O foolish fay"


Maureen Forrester, contralto; Winnipeg Singers, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey, cond. CBC, recorded February 1994


IN TOMORROW'S PREVIEW POST --

We focus on the baroque Maureen Forrester.

And then in Sunday's post we'll hear more of Forrester's special glory, Mahler, including the nonpareil final movement, the half-hour "Farewell," of The Song of the Earth, in performances conducted by George Szell, Fritz Reiner, and Bruno Walter.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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