My review of the upcoming album Electric Fields from Barbara Hannigan and friends is now up at myscena.org.
Catalogue information: Alpha Classics ALPHA980
Electric Fields
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Coups de roulis
One might be forgiven for thinking that French operetta ended with Offenbach since, outside of France anyway, nothing much gets performed. However, the tradition continued. Reynaldo Hahn, for example, produced Ciboulette in 1923. Another has now come my way. It’s an audio recording of Andrê Messager’s 1928 work Coups de roulis.
It’s set on a French battleship, the Montesquieu in the Mediterranean. Christmas leave has been cancelled to allow the visit of the High Commissioner M. Puy-Pradal on a cost saving expedition. He is accompanied by his daughter Béatrice who is his secretary. Both the ship’s captain Gerville and a young officer Kermao fall in love with Béatrice. During a party given during a courtesy visit to Egypt Puy-Pradal forms a liaison with the aspiring actress Sola Myrrhis who believes Puy-Pradal’s influence can get her into the Comédie-Française. He accompanies her on her Egyptian tour.
Alceste at Versailles
My review of the Chateau de Versailles Spectacles recording of Lully’s Alceste is now up at Opera Canada
Farewell to Natalie Dessay
Few singers over the years have given me as much pleasure as Natalie Dessay. She and pianist Philippe Cassard have now announced their upcoming retirement from concert performance (Natalie retired from the stage a few years ago) and are about to release an album of their farewell tour material. It’s called Oiseaux de passage and it’s half an hour or so of bird themed chansons with some English language musical theatre numbers included for good measure.
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is a one act symbolist opera for two singers based on a French folk tale. It’s scored for a large orchestra and uses quite a lot of dissonance and it’s a famously tough sing for the singer (soprano or mezzo) singing Judit. It’s been recorded a lot. Wikipedia lists 32 audio or video recordings, not including this new one from Gabor Brertz, Rinat Shaham and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karina Cavellakis.
Russell Braun in Carmina Burana
My review of the recent CD featuring Russell Braun with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich is now up at La Scena Musicale. TL:DR it’s good!
Catalogue information: Alpha Classics ALPHA1031
A bit of an oddball
Once in a while I go out on a limb with recordings. Sometimes it’s great. I’m not as a rule particularly fond of “cross-over” material but I loved Emily D’Angelo’s freezing for example. So I took a listen to Schubert Beatles from the New York Festival of Song. Broadly speaking, it pairs Schubert Lieder with Beatles’ songs on a similar theme; Yesterday and Im Frühling for example. The Schubert is mostly presented pretty straight (except for guitar accompaniment on Du bist die Ruh). The Beatles songs are arranged, by Steven Beier, for various combinations of piano, violin, bass and guitar. The principal singer is baritone Theo Hoffman with tenor Andrew Owens and soprano Julia Bullock joining on some tracks. Continue reading
Rediscovered Massenet
Massenet’s Grisélidis gets the Bru-Zane treatment. Review at La Scena Musicale.
Catalogue information: Bru Zane BZ105
Sabine Devieilhe impresses in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol
Olivier Py directed a production of Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in 2023 and a live recording was made for CD. The Nightingale is sung by soprano Sabine Devieilhe and she is very good indeed. She has pretty much the perfect voice for this role with its coloratura sections and very high tessitura. Her voice sounds suitably sweet all the way up and her coloratura is very precise. She’s very well backed up by an all French cast featuring the excellent tenor Cyrille Dubois as the Fisherman and the unmistakable Laurent Naouri as the Chamberlain. Jean-Sébastien Bou also impresses as a suitably tremulous Emperor and there’s a nice cameo from Chantal Santon Jeffery as the Cook. The minor roles are all well sung and French diction is notably good across the board. Continue reading
A Finnish Gerontius
Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius is very well served on record but a new version with good soloists may still be worth a look. And there is a new one on the Ondine label featuring Christine Rice, John Findon and Rod Williams. There’s a rather staggering collection of choirs; the Helsinki Music Centre Choir, the Cambridge University Symphony Chorus, Dominante | Helsinki Chamber Choir and the
Alumni of the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge. All this plus the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon. Continue reading
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