"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sunday Classics special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 6 -- as Richard Strauss's Ariadne
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Ernest Stern's drawing for the set for the island of Naxos for the original 1912 production of Ariadne auf Naxos -- you can even click on it to enlarge it!
by Ken
We've dabbled at Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos before, usually from the vantage point of the characters they created for the Prologue they added to the original opera seria-plus-commedia dell'arte burlesque (which was originally nestled inside the playwright's adaptation of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme, with incidental music by the composer), to create a stand-along opera. Today, as part of our series remembering soprano Margaret Price, we home in on Ariadne herself.
It's an important role for the evolution of Price's voice and repertory, because while it has been taken by lyric-weight sopranos like Lisa della Casa and Gundula Janowitz, it's generally associated with heavier-weight voice types, like Leonie Rysanek and Jessye Norman. As we heard in Price's earlier recordings, there were always indication of some size to the voice, and it seems to have been a natural enough evolution for the voice to fill out (and at the same time lose some of that formerly dazzling flexibility).
In this connection it would have been logical to return -- as I suggested we might -- to Price's recording of Wagner's Isolde (we heard the Liebestod in Part 1; see the listing below), the closest she came to singing this fearsome role. But I'm afraid I underestimated the logistics involved in preparing the Ariadne portion of this post. We still have a lot of unfinished business in our remembrance of Price, so we'll just have to add the return to Tristan to our "to do" list.
The commedia dell'arte players (baritone Stephen Dickson as Harlekin, tenor Anthony Laciura as Brighella, bass Artur Korn as Truffaldin, tenor Allan Glassman as Scaramuccio) and Zerbinetta (soprano Kathleen Battle -- the clip takes us through the beginning of her great showpiece aria) attempt to console Ariadne (soprano Jessye Norman), at the Met in 1988, James Levine conducting.
Sunday Classics: The case of Franz Schubert -- how did so much music of such beauty come from one mind, and in such a tragically short time?
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Post rehabilitated (with updates, including the addition of audio clips of "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst"), July 2018
Is this the most beautiful music ever written?In the 2018 rehab of this post, we have the sublime second-movement Adagio of Schubert's C major String Quintet played by the Camerata Quartet (violinists Wlodzimierz Prominski and Andrzej Kordykiewicz, violist Piotr Reichert, and cellist Roman Hoffmann; with guest cellist Marta Kordykiewicz), in place of the no-longer-available clip of the Alban Berg Quartet with longtime cellist pal Heinrich Schiff, video-recorded a quarter-century after their still-glowing 1982 EMI recording.
Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Teresa Zylis-Gara (s), Composer; Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1968 "Music is a holy art, to gather all sorts of daring like cherubim around a shining throne, and that is why it is the holiest of the arts! Holy music!"
-- the Composer, at the end of his comically heroic trials
in the Prologue to Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard
Strauss's revised version of their opera Ariadne on Naxos
by Ken
In the Prologue to Ariadne, Richard Strauss of course had the luxury of irony. I don't doubt that he shared all of his idealistic young Composer's beliefs about the sacredness of music and art, but he would have been much too clear-headed to just come out and say so. With the delicious layer of irony afforded him by the Composer's youthful naivete, he managed to make this both a richly comic and a deeply felt moment. Franz Schubert, however, had had the courage to express such sentiments without any distancing filters.
As I wrote yesterday, you can't really provide a rational answer for a question like "Who was the world's greatest melody-writer?" And as I also said, if I kick the question around a little, the answer seems obvious. Yesterday I was talking about Puccini, and he certainly rates consideration, as does Richard Strauss, and you could throw in "the other" Strauss, the principal subject of last week's classical music post, Johann II. Mozart has to be in the mix, and maybe Verdi, and perhaps Rossini.
But in the end, it seems to me that there's no one quite in a league with Schubert.
Just consider the above clip. I kept going back and forth between the first and second movements of Schubert's glorious String Quintet in C. They're almost identical in length, in the 13-minute range. I finally settled on the first movement, if only for the lyrical second subject, first sung by the paired cellos. Maybe I was thinking it was just unfair to enter the uniquely sublime slow movement in such a competition. But I had already copied the embed code for the start of the second movement, and I was too lazy to change it. Besides, how do you turn your back on this ethereal movement?
(I don't know the date of this performance by the Alban Berg Quartet, but it has to fall in the window between 2005, when Isabel Charisius replaced violist Thomas Kakuska, and 2008, when this great quartet -- the one great string quartet of the last several decades, I think -- called it quits after a run of some 37 years. The Berg's 1982-ish EMI recording, also with Schiff, was my first CD version of the Quintet, and it might still be my first pick.)
We think often of the incalculable tragedy of the death of Mozart before his 36th birthday. We don't always remember that Schubert (1797-1828) didn't make it to 32. So it's even more grotesque to speak of Schubert's "late" works, and yet there's no question that, as with Mozart, Schubert in his final years was developing in such amazing ways as to leave one grasping blindly to imagine what he might have achieved with just a few extra years. There's no denying that in the last year or two of his life his art was growing in extraordinarily audacious directions, as reflected not just in our sublime String Quintet but in the giant 9th Symphony (known as the "Great C major," to distinguish it from the "Little C major Symphony," No. 6 -- the word "gross" meaning both "big" and "great"), the last string quartet (No. 15 in G), the last three piano sonatas, and the harrowing song cycle Winterreise ("Winter Journey").
Still, it was evident early on that Schubert had an extraordinary melodic gift, and his subsequent career demonstrated that he had an apparently limitless supply. Without that, it's hard to imagine he could possibly have racked up his mind-boggling total of some 600 songs.
"An die Musik" ("To Music") is at once one of Schubert's least complicated songs and one of his most deeply felt and most searching. There are two recordings I usually press on people -- one obvious, one maybe not. Fritz Wunderlich (1930-1966) recorded his as part of the gorgeous Schubert mini-recital that occupied the fourth LP side of his still-unmatched DG recording of the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin. The Russian baritone (well, ethnically Armenian, but in his lifetime he would have been thought of, at least to the outside world, as simply "a Soviet baritone") Pavel Lisitsian (1911-2004) offered a rollingly luscious account in the diverse '50s song recital once available here as an MK LP.
[2018 UPDATE: In place of the now-gone clip of "An die Musik" I described in 2009 as "a broad, dignified, and just plain beautiful performance" by the Canadian bass-baritone George London, we have this 1960s performance by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with pianist Gerald Moore. -- Ed.]
Thou lovely art, in how many gray hours,
where the wild circle of life ensnares me,
have you kindled my heart to warm love,
have transported me to a better world,
transported me to a better world?
Often has a sigh escaped from your harp,
a sweet, sacred chord of yours
has opened up to me the heaven of better times.
Thou lovely art, I thank thee for that.
Thou lovely art, I thank thee for that.
SOME SCHUBERT BASICS
ORCHESTRAL WORKS Symphonies Nos. 8 (Unfinished) and 9. Vienna Philharmonic and London Symphony, Josef Krips, cond. (Decca) Symphonies (complete). Vienna Philharmonic, Istvan Kertesz, cond. (Decca)
PIANO WORKS Piano Sonatas, D. 958-60. Sviatoslav Richter (various labels); Richard Goode (Nonesuch); Murray Perahia (Sony) Impromptus. Agustin Anievas, piano (EMI)
CHAMBER WORKS Piano Trios (2). Borodin Trio (Chandos). Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Henryk Szeryng, violin; Pierre Fournier, cello (BMG, in various couplings). String Quartets Nos. 13-15; Quartet Movement (No. 12); String Quintet in C. Brandis Quartet (Nimbus). Plus many fine recordings of the individual pieces. Trout Quintet. Rudolf Serkin, piano; Marlboro Festival soloists (Sony). Mieczyslaw Horszowski, piano; Budapest Quartet members; Julius Levine, double bass (Sony). Nash Ensemble (IMP, with Felicity Lott singing "The Shepherd on the Rock").
SONGS Die schoene Muellerin ("The Lovely Miller's Daughter," song cycle). Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Hubert Giesen, piano (DG) Winterreise ("Winter Journey," song cycle). Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano (DG -- note,not the F-D/Moore/EMI or F-D/Demus/DG version). Jon Vickers, tenor; Peter Schaaf, piano (VAI). Schwanengesang ("Swan Song," song collection). Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano (Philips). Olaf Baer, piano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano (EMI). Songs. Renee Fleming, soprano; Christoph Eschenbach, piano (Decca). Janet Baker, mezzo; Gerald Moore, piano (EMI). Felicity Lott, soprano; Graham Johnson, piano (IMP). And for the truly committed: Songs. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano (DG, 21 CDs).
F-D can substitute mere hamminess for real interpretive reach, especially when the vocal lie is uncomfortable for him, but how many singers could have produced a collection like this? And the piano playing of Gerald Moore is for me a constant source of wonder and delight. Complete Songs. Many, many singers; Graham Johnson, artistic director and piano (and also annotator extraordinaire; Hyperion, 37 CDs).
Vocally uneven, not surprisingly, but a tour de force for Graham Johnson, a Schubert accompanist of almost Gerald Moore-ian stature and a wonderful tour guide in his really detailed song-by-song annotations. This series is a source of endless fascination.
[Nov. 13, 2010] Sunday Classics preview solution: A sneak peek at perhaps Strauss's best-loved operas, "Rosenkavalier" and "Ariadne"
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The opening of the 1988 Met telecast performance of Ariadne auf Naxos, with Franz Ferdinand Nentwig as the Music Master and Nico Castel as the Major-Domo (and, at the end of the clip, James Courtney as the Lackey and Charles Anthony as the Officer) -- staged by Bodo Igesz and conducted by James Levine
by Ken
The grouping of our four excerpts into two pairs, A-B and C-D, wasn't accidental, of course. We have here music from what I think we can safely call the most-loved operas of Richard Strauss (1864-1949), Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos, the first two operas he composed to original librettos by the distinguished young playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929). (Their previous collaboration, Elektra, was an operatic adaptation of Hofmannsthal's non-operatic adaptation of the Sophocles play.)
We're hearing the openings of both operas, and in the case of Ariadne, we're hearing both openings. The alternately sober and zany "opera seria" Ariadne auf Naxos was originally conceived to be performed as an intermezzo in an abridged version of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme -- a version prepared, naturally, by Hofmannsthal -- but was subsequently retooled for self-sufficiency, newly equipped with a Prologue to show us how the wacky mélange that follows comes to happen.
Then for balance, and 'cause I love it, as a bonus I've thrown in a unique nugget from Rosenkavalier.
R. STRAUSS: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59 (1910)
There are a number of ways to approach the literally orgasmic orchestral introduction to Der Rosenkavalier, but for this go-through I couldn't resist the combination of molten energy and (after the act) sweetness Georg Solti summons from Strauss's beloved Vienna Philharmonic. And I couldn't resist throwing in the Italian Singer's treacherous aria from the Marschallin's levée in Act I. It's a showpiece, of course, but a showpiece with a characteristically Straussian ironic twist: The composer clearly wanted the tenor to be able to show off his stuff, but to preserve the effect of a home salon performance, he made it so fiercely difficult that even Pavarotti in his prime is left struggling to survive its upper reaches.
[A] Act I: Orchestral introduction
[B] Act I; the Italian Singer's aria, "Di rigori armati"
Luciano Pavarotti (t), the Italian Singer (in [B]); Vienna Philarmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded November 1968
R. STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60 (1911, 1916)
Perhaps it had to do with the extremely difficult process by which the final opera was created, but Ariadne auf Naxos held a special place in Strauss's heart. While it's probably Die Frau ohne Schatten among Strauss's operas that's most closely associated with Karl Böhm (and for obvious reason), I think it's clear from his performances of it all over the operatic world that the Strauss opera closest to his heart as well as the composer's was Ariadne. (One cherishable document is the complete recording of the performance he conducted at the Vienna State Opera to celebrate Strauss's 80th birthday on June 11, 1944, one of the last performances in the original Staatsoper building that was largely destroyed by Allied bombers on March 12, 1945.)
Although the sound of these excerpts is humble broadcast mono, it would be hard to imagine them endowed with more affection, wit, or radiant warmth. I don't mean to disparage James Levine's surfacey, utilitarian conducting in the video clip . . . oh wait, maybe I do.
[C] Prologue: Orchestral introduction
[D] Overture to the opera-within-the-opera
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Mar. 28, 1970
[3/13/2011] Special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 6 -- as Richard Strauss's "Ariadne" (continued)
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Harlekin tries to cheer up the inconsolable Ariadne. Unfortunately, her desolation is so complete that it wouldn't work even if he were to sing a whole lot better than this.
AS USUAL, WE'RE GOING TO START AT THE BEGINNING, BUT IN THIS CASE . . .
R. STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60: Overture to the opera seria Ariadne auf Naxos
Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon, Kent Nagano, cond. Virgin Classics, recorded April-May 1994
What we have here, in both versions of Ariadne, is a delirious concatenation created by the whim of the filthy-rich patron (Monsieur Jourdain from Moliès Le bourgeois gentilhomme in the original; "the richest man in Vienna" in the Prologue added for the revised version) who has paid for both entertainments and then at the last minute decided to have them combined, so that the infinitely serious opera seria telling the story of the princess Ariadne wasting away on the island of Naxos after her abandonment by Theseus is, well, invaded by a quartet of commedia dell'arte players and their infinitely alluring and flirtatious partner, Zerbinetta. (Note that, while the recording we're drawing on is the first commercial recording of the original version, the portion of the opera we're listening to was, as far as I know, left unchanged in the revision.)
The stage direction says: "Ariadne in front of the cave on the ground, motionless. Najade at left. Dryade at right. Echo at the back against the wall of the grotto."
We're going to cheat here and splice in the first part of the scene from other recordings, for the sake of, among other things, better nymphs. (Better Nymphs -- that ought to be a good name for something.) With the extra time made possible by my assorted technical problems on this post (I know these posts look like they're slapped together in 10 or 15 minutes, and they may not be worth more effort than that, but that's not the reality, alas), I've turned to the LP issues of my two favorite Ariadne recordings. Since I was making my own dubs, I started back at the Overture to the opera seria and continued through Ariadne's awakening "Ach!" (and of course Echo's echoing "Ach!").
Ariadne auf Naxos: Overture to the opera seria . . . Najade and Dryade, "Schläft sie?"
NAJADE: Is she sleeping? DRYADE: Is she sleeping? NAJADE: No, she's weeping. DRYADE: Weeping in her sleep. She's moaning. NAJADE: She's weeping. DRYADE: Weeping in her sleep. NAJADE and DRYADE: Ah, she's always like this. NAJADE: Day after day in benumbed sorrow. DRYADE: Ever-fresh bitter laments. NAJADE: Fresh spasms and shivering fever, ever-fresh bitter complaints, inconsolable. DRYADE [overlapping]: A heart wounded forever, forever -- inconsolable. ECHO [overlapping]: Forever, forever, inconsolable. ALL THREE: Ah, we're used to it now. Like the waves gently rocking, like the leaves, lightly tossing, it flows away above us. Her tears, her laments, ah, for many a day we have scarce paid heed to them. Alas! Like the waves gently rocking &c. ARIADNE [on the ground]: Ah! ECHO: Ah!
Ariadne auf Naxos: Ariadne, "Ach! Wo war ich? Tot?"
ARIADNE: Ach! ECHO: Ach! ARIADNE: Where was I? Dead? And alive, alive again and still living? And yet it is no life that I live! Shattered heart, will you forever keep on beating? [Half raising herself] What then did I dream? Woe is me! Already forgotten! My head retains nothing anymore. Only shadows slip throw a shadow. And yet, something suddenly blazes up and pains me so! Ah! ECHO: Ah! HARLEKIN [from the wings]: How young and fair and infinitely sad! ZERBINETTA [from the wings]: In face like a child, but how dark-ringed her eyes! HARLEKIN and TRUFFALDIN: And very, very difficult to console, I fear.
Margaret Price (s), Ariadne; Virginie Pochon (s), Echo; Thomas Mohr (b), Harlekin; Sumi Jo (s), Zerbinetta; Alfred Kuhn (b), Truffaldin; Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon, Kent Nagaon, cond. Virgin Classics, recorded April-May 1994
NOW ARIADNE LAUNCHES HER GREAT MONOLOGUE
It's actually a double monologue, separated by some community participation from the assorted other players on Ariadne's "deserted" island.
Ariadne auf Naxos: Ariadne, "Ein schönes war" . . . Zerbinetta, "Ach, so versuchet doch ein kleines Lied" . . . Ariadne, "Es gibt ein Reich"
ARIADNE [without taking any notice of them; talking to herself, as in a monologue]: There was a thing of beauty called "Theseus-Ariadne," that walked in light and rejoiced in life. Why do I know of it? I want to forget! [Another idea occurs to her poor deranged mind.] This one thing I have still to find: It is shameful to be as confused as I am! I must try to rouse myself. Yes, this I still must find: the maiden that once I used to be! Now I have it -- the gods grant that I hold on to it! Not the name -- the name has grown together with another name, one thing grows so easily into another, alas! NAJADE, DRYADE, ECHO [trying to awaken her]: Ariadne! ARIADNE [motioning them away]: No, not again! She lives here quite alone. Lightly she breathes, lightly she moves, not a blade stirs where she treads, her sleep is chaste, her mind serene, her heart as pure as a spring; she keeps herself undefiled, for the day is soon to come when she can wind herself in her mantle, cover her face with a cloth and lie there, among the dead. HARLEKIN [from the wings]: I'm afraid that great sorrow has unhinged her mind. ZERBINETTA [from the wings]: Let's try some music. SCARAMUCCIO and TRUFFALDIN [from the wings]: No doubt, she has gone mad. ARIADNE [without turning her head, to herself, as if she had heard the last words in her dream]: Mad, but wise, yes! I know what is good, when one can keep it far from one's poor heart. ZERBINETTA [from the wings]: Oh then, try a little song! HARLEKIN [singing from the wings]: Love and hatred, hope and fear, evlery joy and every pain, all this can the heart endure once and many times again. [ECHO repeats it soullessly, like a bird, without words.] But to feel not joy nor sadness, even pain itself being dead, that is fatal to your heart, this you must not do for me! You must lift yourself from darkness, were it but to fresher pangs! You must live, for life is lovely, you must live again once more. [ECHO, as before. ARIADNE, unmoved, dreams on to herself.] ZERBINETTA [in half-voice]: She didn't raise her head once! HARLEKIN [the same]: It's all no use. I felt as much while I was singing. [ECHO again repeats the melody.] ZERBINETTA: You're quite upset. HARLEKIN: Never have I been so moved by any human being. ZERBINETTA: You're the same about every woman. HARLEKIN: And aren't you the same about every man?
ARIADNE [to herself]: There is a realm where all is pure; it has a name too: Realm of Death. [Rises from the ground.] Here nothing is pure! All is finished here. [She pulls her robe close around her.] But soon a messenger will draw nigh, they call him Hermes. With his staff he rules all souls; like bird on the wing, like dry leaves, he drives them before him. O beautiful, serene god! See! Ariadne awaits you!
Oh, my heart must be cleansed of all wild grief. Then your presence will call me, your hand will touch my heart. In the beautiful festal robes, which my mother bequeathed me, my body will remain, the silent cave will be my tomb. But mutely my soul will follow its new lord, as a light leaf in the wind flutters downward, gladly falling.
Darkness will cover my eyes and fill my heart, this body will remain, richly adorned and all alone.
You will set me free, give me to myself, this burdensome life, take it from me. I will lose myself entirely in you, with you Ariadne will abide.
Margaret Price (s), Ariadne; Brigitte Fournier (s), Najade; Doris Lamprecht (ms), Dryade; Virginie Pochon (s), Echo; Thomas Mohr (b), Harlekin; Sumi Jo (s), Zerbinetta; Steven Cole (t), Scaramuccio; Alfred Kuhn (bs), Truffaldin; Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon, Kent Nagano, cond. Virgin Classics, recorded April-May 1994
STILL TO COME IN "REMEMBERING MARGARET PRICE," AT A DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED
One of the clearest reflections of Price's gravitation to a heavier-weight repertory was her increasing performance of Verdi roles, so we'll be sampling her Amelia in Ballo and Desdemona in Otello and perhaps one or two others. And we still have to at least sample the song repertory that was so important to her.
Ernest Stern's drawing for the set for the island of Naxos for the original 1912 production of Ariadne auf Naxos -- you can even click on it to enlarge it!
