Sunday Classics: Remembering Rafael Kubelik, Josef Krips, and Rudolf Kempe

BEDRICH SMETANA: The Bartered Bride:
Overture; Polka; Furiant; Dance of the Comedians

Philharmonia Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. EMI, recorded 1951

by Ken

With no particular rhyme or reason, as I explained in Friday night's preview, we're hearing snatches of treasures I found in an embarrassingly large order I just received from that indispensable repository of (mostly but by no means only) classical cut-out and overstock CDs and DVDs, the Berkshire Record Outlet. These particular snatches spotlight three "K" conductors. I'm especially fond of their solidly grounded musicianship, making music from the inside rather than imposing external "rules" or playing for crowd-grabbing "effects."

Friday night we heard orchestral excerpts by Berlioz and Hindemith from a four-CD "portrait" of the wonderful Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik (1914-1996, seen here around the time he was music director of the Chicago Symphony, 1950-53) drawing on his early recordings for EMI, Mercury, and Decca. I thought we'd start out today's wider sampling by listening to some of my favorite music, the Overture and Dances from Bedrich Smetana's comic opera The Bartered Bride (which in fact we already heard back in a November 2009 post, "It's not for nothing that Smetana was dubbed 'the father of Czech music'").


LONGTIME SUNDAY CLASSICS READERS HAVE HEARD A LOT
OF KUBELIK, AND ALSO OF JOSEF KRIPS AND RUDOLF KEMPE


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[Nov. 13, 2010] Sunday Classics preview solution: A sneak peek at perhaps Strauss's best-loved operas, "Rosenkavalier" and "Ariadne"

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

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[7/13/2012] Preview: A decidedly unorthodox musical tribute (if you can call it that) to Italy (continued)

Luciano Pavarotti as the Singer in Der Rosenkavalier

It is what we're presumably meant to take as a typical morning at home in Vienna with the Feldmarschallin (i.e., wife of the Field Marshall) Princess Werdenberg. We're in her boudoir, where a veritable circus of personal-service providers, purveyors of diversions, and supplicants have found their way, and are singly and overlappingly doing whatever it is they came to do in the great lady's presence.

Also on hand, to the Marschallin's considerable annoyance, is unpleasant cousin, Baron Ochs of Lerchenau (whom we met briefly in the February 2010 post "Glimpses of the musical depths of Richard Strauss"), leaning on her for assorted assistance in the planning for his impending nuptials. As our scene begins, an Italian tenor, accompanied (in both senses) by a flutist, sets up to sing. Meanwhile the Baron has commandeered the Marschallin's Notary, and is dictating greed-besotted, not to mention illegal, terms for a wedding settlement outside the actual wedding agreement.

R. STRAUSS: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59: Act I, Italian Singer, "Di rigori armato"

Sorry, but I didn't have the time, energy, or stamina do texts and translations -- I mean, for a preview! My bad. Anyway, here's the gist of it:

After the Singer has managed to get in an entire stanza of his song, we hear the exchange between the Baron and the Notary, which becomes increasingly unpleasant. At a propitious moment the Singer launches a second stanza, but the quarrel between the Baron and the Notary becomes so heated that the startled Singer breaks off.

[A]

Plácido Domingo (t), Italian Singer; Walter Berry (bs-b), Baron Ochs; Ljubomir Pantscheff (bs), Notary; Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded 1971
[B]

Nicolai Gedda (t), Italian Singer; Otto Edelmann (bs-b), Baron Ochs; Harald Pröglhöf (bs), Notary; Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1957
[C]

Anton Dermota (t), Italian Singer; Ludwig Weber (bs), Baron Ochs; Franz Bierbach (bs), Notary; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Kleiber, cond. Decca, recorded June 1954 (mono)
[D]

Luciano Pavarotti (t), Italian Singer; Manfred Jungwirth (bs), Baron Ochs; Alfred Jerger (bs-b), Notary; Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded November 1968

JUST A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT THIS QUESTION
OF HOW WE'RE MEANT TO REACT TO THE SINGER

With Richard Strauss, however, it's not entirely unknown for him to have written music that's more indelibly beautiful than the situation calls for. In this very opera, for example, I raised the question here when we dipped into Act II and met Baron Ochs's (monstrously) intended bride, young Sophie von Faninal. A lot of her music is of such astounding beauty -- a level of splendor probably obtainable by maybe two or three other composers -- that it's hard to believe it doesn't tell us something about an inner radiance. I certainly experience that, but I have to acknowledge the possibility, at least, that Strauss may simply have overshot.


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST . . .

Quite apart from this exercise in Italianness, the young Strauss himself had an idyllic Italian experience, which inspired his first symphonic poem, appropriately titled Aus Italien (From Italy). Sunday we're going to listen to Aus Italien.


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