"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Sunday Classics snapshots: Ramón Vinay and the search for the soul of Otello
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Lauritz Melchior sings Otello's monologue (in German, in a 1930 HMV recording) maybe better than I've heard anyone else sing it. (Note: We've got English texts coming up in a bit if you want to jump ahead to them.)
by Ken
I first heard about the Melchior performance of Otello's monologue in Conrad L. Osborne's 1963 High Fidelity magazine discography of Otello. It took awhile, but eventually one day I was browsing the import section of the new releases at one of the record stores I frequented, and there was an LP devoted to Melchior on a label I had never seen, which as far as I could tell didn't even identify itself, except as "Lebendige Vergangenheit," or LV. The company turned out to be Preiser, which became and remains an important source of vocal reissues. I didn't know that then, though, but I had no choice except to pay bust-out retail for the disc. (When could I expect to find this unknown label on sale?)
As I hope you've already heard, the performance turned out to be every bit as good as promised by CLO.
As it happens, Conrad's Otello discography in High Fidelity is also the source of the quote about Ramón Vinay's Otello that I talked about the other day, when I recounted how I succeeded in digging it up for an obituary I was assigned to write of the Chilean-born baritone-tenor-baritone after he died (on Jan. 4, 1996; I looked it up).
Sunday Classics snapshots: Signposts on the steep path of Otello's downfall
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[Click to enlarge.]
Now and forever farewell, blessed memories!
Farewell, sublime enchantments of her thought!
Farewell, shining battalions; farewell, victories,
flying arrows and flying steeds!
Farewell, triumphant and sacred banner,
and reveille ringing shrilly in the morning!
The clamor and song of battle, farewell!
The glory of Otello is here at an end!
Francesco Tamagno (t), Otello; piano. Victor, recorded February 2003 (digital transfer by Tim Ecker) -- for some notes on this recording, see below
by Ken
We've been ruminating about and eavesdropping on Verdi and Boito's Otello and his monstrous fall, and last week I posed the question of how the Moor of Venice sinks from the ecstatic raptures of the Act I Love Duet to the moment in Act III when he browbeats the innocent Desdemona lying in the dust by his hand ("More Vickers -- 'Otello fu,' how he gets from here to there").
I would like to answer that more fully, but for now we're just going to signal a pair of signposts along the way, as the poisons his lieutenant "honest Jago" dumps in his mind take hold, in the form of the lie that Desdemona is having an affair with the Moor's former lieutenant, Cassio. Then next week I hope to flesh these moments out.
Otello: Act II, Otello "Tu, indietro" . . . "Ora e per sempre addio"
OTELLO: You! Stand back! Flee!
You have bound me to the cross! Alas!
More horrible than any horrible injury
is the injury of suspicion!
In the secret hours of her lust
(and they were stolen from me!) was by breast agitated
by no omen? I was bold, happy.
I knew nothing yet; I didn't feel
on the divine body that I adored
and on her lying lips
the burning kisses of Cassio! And now, and now . . .
Now and forever farewell, blessed memories!
Farewell, sublime enchantments of her thought!
Farewell, shining battalions; farewell, victories,
flying arrows and flying steeds!
Farewell, triumphant and sacred banner,
and reveille ringing shrilly in the morning!
The clamor and song of battle, farewell!
The glory of Otello is here at an end!
[from "In the secret hours of her lust"] Enrico Caruso (t), Otello; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded in New York City, Dec. 28, 1910
Mario del Monaco (t), Otello; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Georg Solti, cond. Live performance, June 30, 1962
Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971
Plácido Domingo (t), Otello; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance, Dec. 7, 1976
Luciano Pavarotti (t), Otello; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live in concert, April 1991
The great heroic tenor Francesco Tamagno was 36 when he created the role of Otello at La Scala in February 1887, but 52 and semi-retired when he recorded three excerpts, in February 2003: Otello's entrance, "Esultate"; the scene at the end of the opera following his murder of Desdemona, "Niun mi tema"; and the performance we heard above of the Act II outburst "Ora e per sempre addio." At least four takes have been circulated, and they're noticeably different, perhaps nor surprising when we hear his sort of improvisatory, embellished approach -- and all much slower than the composer's metronome marking, which we see above.
But notice that Enrico Caruso too sings "Ora e per sempre addio" a lot more lyrically than the virtual battle cry we're accustomed to. Would they actually have sung it this way (a good deal slower than Verdi's metronome marking, as we see above) in the theater? Who knows?
Sunday Classics snapshots: More Vickers -- "Otello fu," how he gets from here to there
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Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Rome Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded July-Aug. 1960
by Ken
Leonard Bernstein had such a strong feeling for the scene of the death of Otello as depicted by Arrigo Boito and Giuseppe Verdi that, as I recall the story (maybe somebody can help me out here? I can't remember where I read or heard him tell the story), he named a family dog "Otello Fu" -- and everyone assumed the name was Chinese.
Last week, remembering Canadian tenor Jon Vickers, we heard two performances of the sublime Love Duet that ends Act I of Verdi's Otello, one of his legendary roles. I should perhaps have issued a spoiler alert before noting that by the end of the opera Otello will murder Desdemona.
Sunday Classics snapshots: More Vickers -- "I am afraid, I am afraid that I will never again be granted this divine moment" (Boito and Verdi's Otello)
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A chunk near the end of the Otello Act I duet lip-synched by Jon Vickers (Otello) and Mirella Freni (Desdemona), from the Unitel film, with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, including our excerpt (at 1:21)
[The sky is now quite clear. Some stars are visible and, on the rim of the horizon, the blue reflection of the rising moon.] OTELLO: Such is my soul's joy that I am afraid,
I am afraid that I will never again be granted
this divine moment
in the unknown future of my destiny. DESDEMONA: Dispel such anguish.
Our love will not change from year to year. OTELLO: Upon this prayer,
let the ranks of angels respond: Amen. DESDEMONA: Amen, let them respond.
Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Leonie Rysanek (s), Desdemona; Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA, recorded July-Aug. 1960
Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Mirella Freni (s), Desdemona; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971
by Ken
We've talked about this before, and for me the giveaway here is Otello's repeated "temo" ("I am afraid"). I suppose someone without his potentially disabling fear might express himself similarly at a moment of such perfect happiness -- and this is surely the greatest love scene, with or without music, ever imagined by the mind of artistic man, only somewhat undercut by our knowledge that by the end of the opera the man will murder the woman.
But again, listen to that repeated "temo," and tell me you're not hearing a man who, at the pinnacle of his success, both career-wise and personal, believes at every moment that in the next moment it could all be taken away from him. If for some reason you really, really hated Otello, and wanted to destroy him, and you knew this about him, this might be the angle you would work.
AT THE RISK OF BELABORING THE OBVIOUS --
Jon Vickers's great roles were always some sort of outlier, outsider, or other kind of social doesn't-fit-in. And there happen to be a group of such roles that were written for -- and some others that can be advantageously allotted to -- a voice of this immense scale.
I don't think we need to say any more before listening to the whole of the Otello Act I Love Duet, backing up to the riot that brings Otello back out to face the Cypriot mob, a riot orchestrated by Jago to bring down his rival, Cassio.
VERDI: Otello, Act I, Cypriots, "All'armi! All'armi!" . . . Otello, "Abbasso le spade!" . . . Otello-Desdemona duet, "Già nella notte densa"
It's the night of the triumphant but terror-inspiring return to Cyprus of its governor from his whupping of the Saracens, which was almost climaxed by the demise of his own in a violent storm within sight of home port. Now, amid the island festivities, Jago has been furiously setting in motion plots against his rival, Cassio -- a first step in his ultimate plot, against Otello himself. Jago has nudged events so that a drunk Cassio winds up starting a riot that brings Otello storming out of his castle followed by torchbearers like so.
CYPRIOTS: To arms! To arms! Help! Help! OTELLO: Down with your swords.
[The combatants stop fighting.]
Hold there! What's happening?
Am I among the Saracens?
Or have you become rabble Turks,
who fight each other like dogs?
Honest Jago, by the love and loyalty
that you have for me. Speak. JAGO: I don’t know . . .
We all were just celebrating, as friends.
Then, as if a malicious star fell upon us,
a quarrel broke out.
Weapons were drawn -- chaos ensued.
I would rather cut these legs off,
for having brought me to witness this. OTELLO: Cassio -- how could you forget yourself like this? CASSIO:. Pardon, my Lord. I don't know . . . OTELLO: Montano? MONTANO [supported by a soldier]: I'm wounded, and cannot speak. OTELLO: Wounded! By Heaven, my blood rages.
Yet my better angels restrain me.
[DESDEMONA enters. OTELLO quickly goes to her.]
What -- my sweet Desdemona.
She too was awoken by this outrage.
Cassio, you are no longer my captain!
[CASSIO lets his sword fall. It is picked up by JAGO.] JAGO [handing CASSIO's sword to a soldier and speaking aside]: Oh, my triumph!) OTELLO: Iago, go around the frightened town
with this squadron and restore the peace.
[JAGO leaves.]
Someone help Montano.
[MONTANO is helped into the castle.]
Everyone return to your homes.
[With an imperious gesture] I will remain here until the streets are deserted,
and calm reigns once more.
[The people leave. OTELLO makes a sign to the torchbearers who accompanied him to return to the castle. OTELLO and DESDEMONA are left alone.] OTELLO: The vast night sky extinguishes all strife,
And my trembling heart is calmed by its embrace.
Yet, from such immense hatred
comes our immense love. DESDEMONA: My superb warrior.
Many torments, and such sadness,
And much hope have brought you
to this blessed embrace.
How sweet when we whispered together:
Remember now with me.
When you revealed your life of exile,
and told me of your battles, and sorrow.
And I would listen from my very soul
with fear, and ecstasy in my heart. OTELLO: I painted a canvas of armies,
of weapons poised to attack,
The assault -- of terrible victory –
cutting to the rampart -- killing the foe. DESDEMONA: Then you would guide me
to the shining deserts of your homeland,
At last sharing your suffering –
in chains, as a slave. OTELLO: Your tears ennobled my story.
Your beautiful visage, and your sighs
Descended upon my darkness
a blessed glory -- a paradise -- and the stars. DESDEMONA: And I saw in your brow
a genius of eternal beauty. OTELLO: And you loved me for my misfortunes;
And I loved you that you pitied them. DESDEMONA: And I loved you for your misfortunes:
And you loved me that I pitied them. OTELLO: Truly you loved me.
Let death come! And may the supreme moment take me
in the ecstasy of this embrace.
[The sky is now quite clear. Some stars are visible and, on the rim of the horizon, the blue reflection of the rising moon. ]
Such is my soul's joy that I am afraid,
I am afraid that I will never again be granted
this divine moment
in the unknown future of my destiny. DESDEMONA: Dispel such anguish.
Our love will not change from year to year. OTELLO: Upon this prayer,
let the ranks of angels respond: Amen. DESDEMONA: Amen, let them respond. OTELLO [supporting himself against the parapet]:
Ah. Such joy overcomes me
so vehemently, I cannot bear it.
A kiss. DESDEMONA: Otello. OTELLO: Yet another kiss.
The stars of the Pleiades descend toward the sea. DESDEMONA: It is late. OTELLO: Come. Venus shall guide us. DESDEMONA: Otello!
[They go slowly toward the castle, clasped in each other's arms.]
Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Tito Gobbi (b), Jago; Florindo Andreolli (t), Cassio; Franco Calabrese (bs), Montano; Leonie Rysanek (s), Desdemona; Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA, recorded July-Aug. 1960
Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Peter Glossop (b), Jago; Ryland Davies (t), Cassio; Siegfried Rudolf Friese (bs), Montano; (s), Mirella Freni (s), Desdemona; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971
Ghost of Sunday Classics preview: Attention, please!
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Can you imagine a more ravishing musical attention-getter?
London Symphony Orchestra, Charles Mackerras, cond. Philips-Mercury, recorded July 1961
by Ken
What we hear above is really and truly a preview; we're not going to hear any more of this piece until tomorrow's Ghost of Sunday Classics post. Many of you will recognize it (we've actually heard it before), but for now I just want to focus on this ravishing opening.
This is a talent, I think, the ability to grab a listener's attention musically. Not in a mechanical, conk-over-the-head way, which I suppose can be done by formula, but in a genuinely imagination-engaging way. The talent can certainly be cultivated, shaped, refined, but I think either you've got stuff in you head that can do the trick or you don't. We've listened, for example, to the way Puccini opened nearly all of his mature operas -- that, I think, is simply astounding, and a measure of unique genius.
One reason I'm so bowled over by the way our composer above seizes hold of our imaginations is precisely because there isn't any conking over the head. Just listen to what he does with that out-of-nothing hush, then gradually gathers momentum. Gorgeous!
This makes me think of the musical solutions Puccini's great predecessor Verdi found for the first of his two supreme masterpieces, Otello. We've heard all of these before (if anyone would like links, please just let me know in the comments; it's so tedious gathering them when there's no earthly purpose), but let's listen first to the similarly quiet orchestral introductions to Acts II, III, and IV.
Ghost of Sunday Classics: It's a barely fathomable distance dramatically from the end of Act I to the end of Act II of Verdi's "Otello"
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Aa Act II ends, Otello (Jon Vickers, right) swears vengeance and Jago (Cornell MacNeil) swears his support (all with subtitles), one of the most thrilling and most appalling moments you'll encounter on a stage -- with James Levine conducting, at the Met in September 1978.
by Ken
We've been dealing with the sisterly or at least cousinly kinship between Verdi's Luisa Miller and Desdemona, and in case it wasn't in obvious in last night's preview, this week we're back to Desdemona.
In the preview we heard the very end of the conclusion of Act II of Verdi's Otello, the moor's oath of vengeance, abetted by his "trusted' Jago, on his "unfaithful" wife -- violent, insanely overflowing with testosterone, but also undeniably thrilling. It's at once one of the most thrilling and most appalling moments you'll encounter on a stage.
Then we heard the next bit of music in the opera, the brief orchestral prelude to Act III, built on an insidious, slithery tune that was first heard Act II, and so we then backed up to listen to the theme to which the diabolical Jago, as part of his plan to use Otello's personal insecurity to destroy him, "warns" him against jealousy.
VERDI: Otello: Act II, Jago, "Temete, signor, la gelosia!" ("Beware, my lord of jealousy")
Beware, my lord, of jealousy!
'Tis a dark hydra, malignant, blind.
It poisons itself with its own venom.
Its breast is rent by a vivid wound.
(1) Leonard Warren, baritone; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Live performance, Nov. 16, 1946
(2) Tito Gobbi, baritone; NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo), Alberto Erede, cond. Telecast performance, recorded Feb. 4, 1959
(3) Sherrill Milnes, baritone; National Philharmonic Orchestra, James Levine, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded August 1978
(4) Leo Nucci, baritone; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live in concert, April 1991
(5) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. EMI, recorded Aug, Oct., and Nov, 1968
Otello is filled with astonishments (it's practically nothing but astonishments). One real astonishment is how Verdi and librettist Arrigo Boito get us, in the space of an act of maybe 35 minutes, from the Act I curtain to the Act II curtain. I thought this week we might peek into the innards of Act II a little, That's not going to happen, at least not this week, But I think this little riff on jealousy, in which Jago significantly amplifies Otello's jealousy by warning him against jealousy, is a splendid sample of how those ardent Shakespeareans Verdi and Boito used their operatic toolkit to accomplish this astonishment.
who are genuinely and all but universally loved because of their basic uncompromised decency and humanity, living exemplary practitioners of the Golden Rule. Naturally they are crushed -- easy pickings in a world that talks a good game about the Golden Rule but truly doesn't believe in it.
One problem in making the connection is that the music in which the relationship between our heroines and the people who love them so tends to be performed as generic, saccharine mush, and so we're not often prompted to consider the effect it would have on us if Luisa's villagers or Desdemona's adoring Cypriots really meant it. It seems to me pretty clear in the music that they do.
HERE'S JUST THE END OF THE CYPRIOTS' ACT II
LOVEFEST WITH THE WIFE OF THEIR GOVERNOR
VERDI: Otello: Act II, Chorus of Cypriots, "Dove guardi splendono raggi"
In Act II, JAGO is just introducing the first dose of poison into the mind of OTELLO regarding the (wholly non-existent) relationship between DESDEMONA and CASSIO when DESDEMONA reappears in the garden. She is surrounded by inhabitants of the island -- women, boys, and Cypriot and Albanian sailors -- who offer her flowers and other gifts." We come in near the end of this brief lovefest between the Cypriiots and Cypress's First Lady, with OTELLO and JAGO observing.
CYPRIOTS: Wherever you look rays shine,
hearts are enflamed.
Wherever you pass, descend showers
of flowers -- here among lilies and roses,
like before a chaste altar, fathers,
children, wives come singing. DESDEMONA [deeply touched, very sweetly]:
The heavens shine, the breeze dances,
flowers perfume the air.
Joy, love, hope
sing in my heart. OTELLO: That song overcomes me.
If she be false, then heaven mocks itself! JAGO [to himself]:
Beauty and love united in sweet harmony!
I shall shatter your sweet accord. CYPRIOTS: Live happily! Live happily!
Here love reigns. OTELLO: That song overcomes me.
[When the singing ends, DESDEMONA kisses some of the children, and some of the women kiss the hem of her gown. She bestows a purse on the sailors.]
Gwyneth Jones (s), Desdemona; James McCracken (t), Otello; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Jago; Ambrosian Opera Chorus, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. EMI, recorded Aug., Oct., and Nov. 1968
Leonie Rysanek (s), Desdemona; Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Tito Gobbi (b), Jago; Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded July-Aug. 1960
Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Desdemona; Luciano Pavarotti (t), Otello; Leo Nucci (b), Jago; Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live in concert, April 1991
NOW WE FLASH BACK TO THE OPENING SCENE OF LUISA
MILLER AS THE VILLAGE CELEBRATES LUISA'S BIRTHDAY
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA-BMG, broadcast performance from Studio 8-H, July 25, 1943
Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded 1976
RCA Italiana Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded June 1964
Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. Sony, recorded Sept. 5-7, 1993
by Ken
The rousing and stirring Overture to Luisa Miller is a piece I adore, and I'm surprised to see that, as far as I can tell, we've never listened to it. I thought we would at least have heard the performance from Tullio Serafin's EMI Italian Opera Overtures disc, but I see now that it's not included on that disc, which could explain it! I've had my copy off the shelf so long that I don't know where it is anyway.)
The Toscanini performance has a scorching intensity I've never heard anyone else even try to get. The Karajan performance (with, of all orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic -- from a strange set of complete Verdi overtures and preludes I've never had much fondness for) takes the piece in a fairly different direction, and since the Schiller-based Luisa is set in the early-17th-century Tyrol (and even the southern Tirol didn't become Italian until after World War I, and itself isn't all that Italian), perhaps it's not such a demerit that the performance doesn't sound especially Italian.
The piece itself is in a very simple sonata form -- exposition, development, recapitulation, and whirlwind coda -- with the wrinkle that the secondary theme of the exposition, sounded by the solo clarinet, is simply the principal theme switched from the minor to the major -- a hallowed old trick we spotlighted in the December 2011 post "It's the old minor-to-major switcheroo -- courtesy of Mahler, Schubert, and Donizetti."
I could continue plying you with performances of the Luisa Overture, but I think I'll offer just one more: a fine all-purpose job from RCA's 1964 Luisa, the first stereo recording (my goodness, now 50 years old, but holding up very nicely), conducted by that age-old opera-house veteran Fausto Cleva. Well, okay, I threw in one more -- from a Sony Verdi overtures-and-preludes series by Riccardo Muti, to hear the concert version of La Scala's orchstra.
WE'RE ACTUALLY CONTINUING LAST WEEK'S
"GHOST" POST DEVOTED TO VERDI'S DESDEMONA
I began that post with the haunting orchestral prelude to Act IV of Verdi's Otello, asking, "How would you describe the atmosphere? Autere? Melancholy? Solitary? Foreboding?" Here it is again. Read more »
Ghost of Sunday Classics: How would you describe the atmosphere? Austere? Melancholy? Solitary? Foreboding?
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Rome Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded July-Aug. 1960
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live, April 1991
by Ken
This week again I found myself in the grip of music, specifically the music we hear above, and even though we've in fact actually heard this music, it was in the context of remembering a fondly remembered singer, and so we didn't really deal properly with the music or the scene, which suggested a post, if I were up to it and there seemed any point.
Sunday Classics preview: Tonight's musical selections should give you a good idea of Sunday's subject
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Jon Vickers lip-syncs Otello's great entrance declaration, "Esultate," from Act I of Verdi's opera, from the 1974 Karajan film.
OTELLO: Rejoice! The pride of the Muslims is buried in the sea; the glory is ours and the heavens! First the army, then the hurricane brought victory. CYPRIOTS: Long live Otello! Long live! Long live! Victory! Victory! Victory!
by Ken
This is virtually a dead giveaway. That's Ex. 1 above, and here's Ex. 2:
Myung-Whun Chung conducts the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra in the joyous finale of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.
The two selections sum up what we're going to be listening to in this week's Sunday Classics post. There's a trick, but only a teeny-tiny one.
YOU SAY YOU WANT MORE "ESULTATE"S? CAN DO!
(1) Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, (2) Mario del Monaco, (3) Jon Vickers, (4) Plácido Domingo, and (5) Luciano Pavarotti
Sunday Classics: Does Verdi's Jago really believe he's evil because he was created by an evil God?
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Curtain up!We like to start at -- or at least get back to -- the beginning. Since we're looking at the opening of Act II of Otello, here's the orchestral introduction again, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan, from their 1961 Decca Otello.
by Ken
I just said in the caption that we're hearing the orchestral inroduction to Act II of Verdi's Otello "again" because we already heard it in Friday night's preview, as part of the complete opening scene, through Jago's "Credo." As we've noted, Otello has no formal overture or even formal prelude, but all four acts have utterly astonishing orchestral introductions. The Act II introduction leads directly into the brief scene in which Jago draws the disgraced Cassio deeper into his net while pretending to show him how to get back into Otello's good graces. Clearly, the orchestral introduction speaks to us of Jago's honeyed persuasiveness, and of the devious mind underlying it. That devious mind is, approximately, our subject today.
In a moment we're going to hear the full opening scene again -- the orchestral introduction, Jago's seduction (more or less) of Cassio, and then the rage that erupts when he has a moment to himself.
We already saw a clip of Bryn singing the "Credo" Friday night, from back in 1996, and since I don't really like beating up on the clips, and that one was better than pretty much all the "Credo" video clips I sampled (the general level ranging from ghastly to hellacious), I gave it a pass. But if it struck you that he hadn't quite absorbed the music into his voice, I absolutely agree.
Now we're in 2010, and it's kind of distressing to hear that the voice seems shorn of most of its singing quality. (You'd like to hope it was just a bad night.). Perhaps more alarming, though, is the cartoonishness of the "interpretation." Yes, Bryn sort of gets that Jago is angry, but I'm not sure he really gets just how angry the man is, because he doesn't seem to have gotten beyond the childish notion that Jago really thinks he's evil because God is evil, and he by God shows us just how evil he is.
As I noted Friday, there has always been controversy concerning this one major change (as opposed to compression) made by librettist Arrigo Boito and composer Giuseppe Verdi in their operafication of Shakespeare's Othello: the addition of Jago's seemingly "explanatory" monologue, which begins, "I believe in a cruel God who created me in his image."
Sunday Classics preview: Verdi's Jago -- "I believe in a cruel God who created me in his image"
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Bryn Terfel sings Jago's "Credo" with Claudio Abbado conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, on "Italian Night" at Berlin's Waldbühne, 1996.
JAGO [gazing after CASSIO]: Go then; I see your end already. Your evil genius drives you on, and I am your evil genius. And my drags me on, implacable God in whom I believe. [Moving away from the balcony, no longer looking at CASSIO, who disappears through the trees.] I believe in a cruel God who has created me in his image and whom, in hate, I call upon. me like himself; cruel and vile he made me. From some vile germ or base atom was I born. I am evil because I am a man; and I feel the primeval slime in me. Yes! This is my creed! I believe with a firm heart, just as does the young widow in church, that the evil I think and which from me proceeds was decreed for me by fate. I believe that the honest man is a mocking buffoon, and in his face and in his heart, everything in him is a lie: tears, kisses, glances, sacrifice and honor. And I believe man to be the sport of a wicked fate, from the germ of the cradle to the worm of the grave. And after this derision comes Death. And then? And then? Death is nothingness. Heaven is an old wives' tale.
-- translation by Gwyn Morris (with Andrew Porter)
by Ken
It's unquestionably true that the most conspicuous deviation from Shakespeare in Verdi and Boito's Otello is the monologue in which Jago announces, "I believe in a cruel god who created me in his likeness." This is widely commentated to be: (a) an attempted "explanation" of Jago's villainous behavior and (b) a regrettable "simplification" of the character. Of course it isn't either of those things, and that's going to be the subject of this week's Sunday Classics post.
Sunday Classics: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 8 -- Verdi's Élisabeth de Valois and (yes, again) Desdemona
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VERDI: Don Carlos (in Italian): Act V, Aria, Élisabeth de Valois, "Tu che le vanità"
Scene: The monastery of San Yuste
ÉLISABETH enters slowly, lost in thought. She approaches the tomb of Charles V and kneels.
ÉLISABETH: You who knew the vanities of the world and enjoy in the tomb profound repose, if they still weep in heaven, weep for my sorrow, and bear my tears to the throne of the Lord.
Carlos will come here. Yes! Let him leave and forget forever. To Posa I swore to watch over his days. Let him follow his destiny; glory will trace it. For me, my day has already reached its evening.
France, noble land, so dear to my verdant years! Fontainebleau! Toward you my thoughts spread their wings. There God heard my vow to love for eternity, and that eternity lasted only a single day.
Amid you, lovely gardens of this Iberian land, if Carlo should ever tarry in the evening, may the turf, the brooks, the fountains, the woods, the blossoms sing of our love in harmony.
Farewell! Farewell, bright golden dreams, lost illusion! The knot is cut, the light is snuffed out. Farewell! Farewell again, verdant years!
Yielding to cruel pain, the heart has just one desire: the peace of the tomb!
You who knew &c.
Ah, lay my tears at the feet of the Lord.
Margaret Price (s), Élisabeth de Valois; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Claudio Abbado, cond. Live performance, 1978
by Ken
This week we're going to take care of some unfinished business in our series commemorating the Welsh soprano Margaret Price, focusing on some of her Verdi roles, which played an increasing part in her repertory over time, with impressive if not necessarily entirely convincing results.
Tonight we're going to revisit her Desdemona in Otello, but we start with two excerpts from the last act of Don Carlos, from a famous La Scala production conducted by Claudio Abbado, with Plácido Domingo in the title role, starting with the queen''s bleak monologue sung in the standard Italian translation as "Tu che le vanità," which we've already heard sung beautifully -- in fact, very different kinds of beautifully -- by Eleanor Steber (at the Met in 1955) and Maria Callas (the 1958 EMI studio recording of the aria) in a March 2010 Sunday Classics post, "In Verdi's Don Carlos, all paths lead back to the tomb of Charles V."
That post focused on the locale: the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the monastery of San Yuste, where he died in 1558, having retired there after mysteriously abdicating the throne in 1556. Earlier in that post we heard Charles's grandson and namesake Prince Carlos make his way to the tomb following the collapse of his dream of marrying Elisabeth, the daughter of the French king, Henri II, after it was decided that the princess would instead marry Carlos's father, the Spanish king, Philip II. And as I indicated in that series of post, I found it hard not to think of a scene before a crypt -- in fact that of yet an earlier forebear, the Emperor Charlemagne -- in Verdi's much earlier opera Ernani. That was the day when, in one of Verdi's great scenes, a licentious young king beset by conspiracies retreated to the tomb of his own ancestor and dug deep inside himself to find what he was made as he awaited word of his election as Holy Roman Emperor. At those two tombs, Charlemagne's and Charles V's, Verdi set some of his most haunted and haunting soul-searching.
Both Élisabeth and Carlos have struggled to accept their unexpected roles as stepmother and stepson. Following the murder of their friend Rodrigo, the duke of Posa, a casualty of the Flemish struggle for liberation from the tyranny of Spain, on orders of King Philip (strong-armed by the ancient Grand Inquisitor), Élisabeth tries, while waiting to say a final good-bye to Carlos, to find something to hold onto.
Career beginnings (plus the Act I Love Duet from Verdi's Otello) Part 1: From Handel's Messiah to Wagner's Tristan, emerging in Mozart Part 2: The Countess in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (plus "Or sai chi l'onore" from Don Giovanni) Part 3: Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte [Plus postscript: more of "Soave sia il vento" in the later post Sunday, Bloody Sunday and the depths of Mozart's humanity] Part 4: Pamina in Mozart's Magic Flute Part 5: Agathe in Weber's Der Freischütz Part 6: Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos Part 7: Verdi's Otello with Price and others as Desdemona Part 8: Elisabeth in Verdi's Don Carlos and more of Price as Desdemona (tonight) Part 9: Verdi's A Masked Ball with Price and others as Amelia (coming tomorrow) Still to come: Price the song-singer
Sunday Classics special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 7 -- as Verdi's Desdemona
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The opening of Verdi's Otello:Sir Georg Solti conducts at Covent Garden, 1992, with Plácido Domingo as Otello.
by Ken
Formally this is still part of our "Remembering Margaret Price" series, but it's not quite like the earlier installments (see list below). As we move into her Verdi roles, which came to play an increasingly important part in her repertory as her career progressed, the results don't seem to me to show her off as well as, say the earlier Mozart roles -- as a result, it seems to me, of some combination of vocal and temperamental incongruities. It's not that the voice wasn't "big enough" for Verdi, because as we're going to hear, voices as light as or lighter than hers have managed in particular roles like Desdemona perfectly well. Yet somehow the voice doesn't seem to me ever to have been quite reconfigured to make Verdi's lines "sound." And somehow the Verdi performances of hers I've heard all have an impersonal, matter-of-fact quality I didn't associate with her Mozart performances, like the Fiordiligi in Otto Klemperer's Così fan tutte recording.
By which I don't mean to suggest that she didn't sing these roles well. Some of the singing is quite beautiful, subject to the above-noted qualifications. It seemed natural, then, to switch the focus from Price to the music, which will repay all the attention we can give it. We're going to focus on just two of Desdemona's excerpts, but they're the Big Ones: the sublime Act I Love Duet (see last night's preview) and the great Act IV scene including the Willow Song and "Ave Maria." And for these we're going to diversify, hearing not just multiple Price performances but some other people's, some of which involve overlap with some of Price's collaborators. The issue isn't so much which performances are "better," although among those I've chosen there are definitely some I don't like so much as others. I'm trying to illustrate some markedly different ways in which this music can be made to sound.
I just said we would be hearing two of Desdemona's excerpts, but in fact we're going to hear three excerpts. This is simply an application of my standing principle of liking to hear how an opera we're dealing with opens. Usually that means an overture or prelude, but as we've had a number of occasions to note, Verdi dispensed with formal orchestral introductory pieces in his last two operas, Otello and Falstaff. But that doesn't mean that for our purposes the way the opera opens is any less important. On the contrary, in both Otello and Falstaff the composer -- in collaboration with his great librettist for both operas, Arrigo Boito, crafted a dramatically even more precise opening. And since, although Otello has come up a number of times in these posts, this is the first time we've really focused on it, I thought it was especially important that we hear how Verdi plunges us into the action, as the assembled Cypriot population, gathered on the beach during a violent thunderstorm awaiting the return of the island's governor from combat against the Turks, watch in horror as the general's ship, even as it comes within view of the shore of Cyprus, appears on the verge of being demolished by the raging sea.
Outside the castle, with the sea wall and sea in the background. An inn with a pergola. It is evening. A thunderstorm is raging.
THE CROWD: A sail! A sail! A standard! A standard! MONTANO: It’s the Winged Lion! CASSIO: We can see it when the lightning flashes. THE CROWD: A trumpet call! A cannon shot! CASSIO: It’s Otello’s ship. MONTANO: The violent waves make it rise and fall. CASSIO: They lift the bow skyward! THE CROWD: The clouds and sea conceal it. And lightning now reveals it. Lightning. Thunder. Vortex. All the tempest’s fury. The waves tremble. The sky trembles. The world itself trembles to its core. With blind rage the waves make the heavens spin. The gods shake the callous sky like a bleak, billowing veil. All is smoke. All is fire. An inferno that enflames and engulfs all. The universe itself shakes. The north wind soars like a phantom. The titans strike the anvil, and the heavens roar. God, in the midst of the storm smile upon us. Save the banner of Venetian glory! Thou, who reigns over the geavens and the earth. Calm the gale. Place the anchor true in the midst of the sea. JAGO: The mast is breaking. RODERIGO: The ship will crash on the rocks. JAGO: (May the sea be Otello’s grave.) THE CROWD: They are saved! They’re manning the rowboats. They’re approaching shore! They’re at the docks. Evviva! OTELLO: Rejoice! The pride of the Ottomans rests at the bottom of the sea. Our glory is from heaven. For the storm has destroyed our enemy. THE CROWD: Evviva, Otello! Evviva! Victory! The enemy is destroyed, buried in the deep sea. For a requiem they have the crash of the waves. The abyss of the sea. Victory! Our enemy is buried at sea. The storm is calmed at last.
Alan Opie (b), Montano; Antony Rolfe Johnson (t), Cassio; Leo Nucci (b), Jago; John Keyes (t), Roderigo; Luciano Pavarotti (t), Otello; Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live at concert performances in Chicago and New York, April 1991
Sunday Classics preview: In which we get in an "Otello" frame of mind
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Here I am thinking I'm offering some big scoop with the Corelli/Zylis-Gara Otello Love Duet, and I see it's all over YouTube -- even in video! Oh well. My version sounds better.
by Ken
Another change of plan: Instead of the hyperambitious program I proposed last night, by which we would have had Margaret Price and Maria Callas as Amelia in extended excerots from Verdi's A Masked Ball tonight and then Price and others as Verdi's Desdemona tomorrow, we're going to scale back and tackle just Otello tomorrow, and tonight, by way of preview, we're going to hear that recording of the Act I Love Duet that I mentioned with Franco Corelli heard briefly but tantalziingly as Otello.
When EMI was planning its recording of Verdi's Otello to be conducted by Sir John Barbirolli (off the triumph of his Madama Butterfly with Renata Scotto and Carlo Bergonzi) with the title role sung by American tenor James McCracken, who was under contract to Decca, the story goes that Terry McEwen, head of the classical division of Decca's American company, London Records, advised his people in London by all means to release McCracken for the project. McEwen, a passionate and highly knowledgeable operaphile of, shall we say, waspish personality, reminded them that for one thing the company was having trouble finding projects with which to eat up his contract (left unanswered is the question of why they ever signed him to the contract), but the clincher was that if McCracken recorded Otello for EMI, that would anger Franco Corelli, an EMI artist, enough to perhaps record the role for them.
[11/27/2011] Does Verdi's Jago really believe he's evil because he was created by an evil God? (continued)
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DON'T YOU THINK IT'S TIME WE HEARD A DECENT PERFORMANCE OF THE "CREDO"?
Ernest Blanc (1923-2010)
Ernest Blanc, baritone; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded September 1961 [audio link]
OKAY, I SAID WE WOULD HEAR THE WHOLE OPENING SCENE OF ACT II, SO LET'S DO THAT
The recorded Jagos are, alas, a generally underwhelming lot, which makes the outstanding performance of Apollo Granforte (1886-1975) in the 1931-32 HMV set that much more valuable.
VERDI: Otello: Act II, Orchestral introduction; Jago, "Non ti crucciar" ("Do not fret") . . . "Vanne" ("Go then") . . . "Credo in un Dio crudel" ("I believe in a cruel God")
A ground-floor apartment in the castle. Through a window a large garden is seen. A balcony. JAGO on this side of the balcony, CASSIO on the garden side.
JAGO: Do not fret. If you trust in me, you will soon enjoy again the flighty favors of Mistress Bianca, proud captain, with your hilt of gold and figured baldric. CASSIO: Do not flatter me . . . JAGO: Attend to what I say. You just know that Desdemona is the leader of our leader, he lives for her alone. Beg that generous soul to intercede for you and your pardon is sure. CASSIO: But how shall I speak with her? JAGO: 'Tis her custom to stroll in the shade of those trees with my wife. Wait for her there. Now the way of salvation is open to you; go then. [CASSIO moves away. JAGO alone.] JAGO [gazing after CASSIO]: Go then; I see your end already. Your evil genius drives you on, and I am your evil genius. And my drags me on, implacable God in whom I believe. [Moving away from the balcony, no longer looking at CASSIO, who disappears through the trees.] I believe in a cruel God who has created me in his image and whom, in hate, I call upon. me like himself; cruel and vile he made me. From some vile germ or base atom was I born. I am evil because I am a man; and I feel the primeval slime in me. Yes! This is my creed! I believe with a firm heart, just as does the young widow in church, that the evil I think and which from me proceeds was decreed for me by fate. I believe that the honest man is a mocking buffoon, and in his face and in his heart, everything in him is a lie: tears, kisses, glances, sacrifice and honor. And I believe man to be the sport of a wicked fate, from the germ of the cradle to the worm of the grave. And after this derision comes Death. And then? And then? Death is nothingness. Heaven is an old wives' tale.
-- translation by Gwyn Morris (stage directions swiped from Andrew Porter)
Apollo Granforte (b), Jago; Piero Girardi (t), Cassio; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Carlo Sabajno, cond. HMV, recorded 1931-32 [audio link] Gabriel Bacquier (b), Jago; Peter Dvorský (t), Cassio; Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca recorded September 1977 [audio link]
NOW WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO IS BREAK THE "CREDO" DOWN INTO SECTIONS
We've actually got six pretty good performances here, and an interesting variety. We're going to hear them all in their entirety (and in fact a number of the singers do some of their best work in sections other than those I've assigned them, but hey, we needed coverage of the whole piece. I think we'll identify the performers when we hear their whole performances.
You'll note, by the way, that I've overlapped the sections a little to provide some sense of continuity. I originally expected that I would offer some pithy, possibly illuminating comments on each section. But the more time I've spent breaking breaking the "Credo" down, the less pithful I've felt. It's all there in the words and music -- that is, as long as performers don't turn it into cartoon words and music.
[A] "Vanne; la tua meta già vedo"
JAGO [gazing after CASSIO]: Go then; I see your end already. Your evil genius drives you on, and I am your evil genius. And my drags me on, implacable God in whom I believe. [Moving away from the balcony, no longer looking at CASSIO, who disappears through the trees.]
[D] "Credo con fermo cuor, siccome la vedovella al tempio"
[Yes! This is my creed!] I believe with a firm heart, just as does the young widow in church, that the evil I think and which from me proceeds was decreed for me by fate.
I believe that the honest man is a mocking buffoon, and in his face and in his heart, everything in him is a lie: tears, kisses, glances, sacrifice and honor. And I believe man to be the sport of a wicked fate, from the germ of the cradle to the worm of the grave.
[. . . from the germ of the cradle to the worm of the grave.] And after this derision comes Death. And then? And then? Death is nothingness. Heaven is an old wives' tale.
BEFORE WE HEAR THE COMPLETE PERFORMANCES, LET ME SUGGEST WHAT I THINK JAGO IS UP TO HERE
Rationalizing, self-justifying, self-deluding, intellectual obfuscating and tap-dancing. Smart-alecking a little, maybe.
Oh yes, and most obviously, but not unimportantly, venting. His inner self is so wholly closed off to everyone around him -- with the likely exception of his wife, Emilia (who's reduced to a really minor role in the opera, but we can still guess that she's familiar with both his dishonesty and his destructiveness) -- and so masterful at disguising his true feelings and intentions that at this crucial moment in his scheming it's hardly surprising that what comes out of him in this totally private moment is so intense, even violent.
But also dishonest. There's a tendency to think, but he's alone, speaking to himself, so why would he lie? For many of the same reason(s) we all lie to ourselves, and maybe some that are his own special province. See the partial list above.
I have keen memories of a moment from the last watchable season of MTV's Real World, ironically (or maybe not so ironically) the season in which the producers made the fateful turn from showing us how different people often are from the way we first perceive them to wallowing in alcohol and sexual titillation. It was a confessional moment from the very young, innocent-looking fellow from Boston who had (the viewer had come to realize) apparently intentionally been provoking behavior among some of his castmates which was horribly damaging both to themselves and to each other.
In that confessional moment he confessed to the camera that yes, he was lying and intentionally causing all that mayhem to his castmates and he was doing it because it gave him pleasure. For me, in an important sense this "explained" the fellow's behavior in a way that simply hadn't occurred to me. (Okay, I'd led a sheltered life.)
In reality, of course, it didn't "explain" anything about why it gave him pleasure to make people around him miserable, but it suggested where to begin rummaging around in his psyche. I should mention, for example, that the fellow was gay, which may matter not because of easily ascribable cause and effect but because of a likely link among behaviors that have to do with harshly imposed outsiderness and isolation from the "general population." (Remember, this was a lot of years ago, and those years have produced some then-unimaginable changes in the way we think about these things. I would guess, though, that this process of social isolating is far from extinct.)
And Boito, in the text for Jago's "Credo," has given us ample ground for speculation about what's going on inside.
For one thing, like that young Real World fellow, Jago is smart -- we might say scary-smart, both smarter than the people around him and smarter than they realize. For another thing, all that supposedly self-exculpatory stuff about his evil and primordial slimefulness is regurgitated more or less directly from this dear old nurturing Mother Church. He's done at least two things with the fundamental concept of "original sin," normally used by the Church to enslave its worshippers:
* raise the stakes by blaming it, not on that goddamned bitch Eve, but on the much more obvious culprit, her creator, and --
* turned it upside down, so that instead of its driving him on a fruitless quest for salvation it makes the very idea laughable.
One more thing we learn about Jago, as the monologue casts off bravado and quietly digs deeper into what makes him tick, he's wise to his smartypants Church's gamesmanship with regard to death. Oh, nearly all religions do it: Given their inability to do much about the here-and-now, they lay it off on the hereafter -- sometimes pleasingly, sometimes scarifyingly, and sometimes, if they dare try to get the balance right (it's the old carrot-and-stick principle), both. But Jago, as we see and especially hear in the final section of the "Credo," refuses to play this game. Or, rather, insists on playing it by more honest rules.
NOW LET'S HEAR THE COMPLETE "CREDO"S, IN THE ORDER WE HEARD THE EXCERPTS
[A] Robert Merrill (1917-2004) studio recording, 1963 New Symphony Orchestra of London, Edward Downes, cond. Decca, recorded September 1963 [audio link]
[B] Giuseppe Taddei (1916-2010) studio recording, 1951 (not from the 1955 complete Otello) RAI (Turin) Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Basile, cond. Cetra, recorded 1951 [audio link]
[C] Anselmo Colzani (1918-2006) live performance, 1964 Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Nello Santi, cond. Live performance, Feb. 15, 1964 [audio link]
[D] Robert Weede (1903-1972) studio recording, 1953 Concert Arts Orchestra, Nicola Rescigno, cond. Capitol/Preiser, recorded 1953 [audio link]
[E] Leonard Warren (1911-1960) live performance, 1946 Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, George, cond. RCA, recorded Feb. 23, 1946 [audio link]
[F] Lawrence Tibbett (1896-1960) studio recording, 1939 Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Wilfred Pelletier, cond. RCA, studio recording, May 3, 1959 [audio link]
GET YER "CREDO" VALUE-ADDED BONUSES
Originally there was going to be a gallery of historical "Credo" recordings in this spot. I can't tell you how many hours I spent compiling them, but in the end I've exiled them to a separate "bonus" location, along with a curious coupling of performances featuring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Jago. Partly the idea was to break up this run of Fischer-Dieskau idolatry I seem to have stumbled into, first with his recording of Wolfram in Wagner's Tannhäuser (the first one, mind you, the 1960 EMI one, not the later one for DG) and then with his c1960 recording with Jörg Demus of Schumann's "Widmung." In reality my feelings about him as a performer are wildly mixed.
