The COC opened its 2023/24 season on Friday night with Matthew Ozawa’s production of Beethoven’s 1805 attack on corruption and tyranny; Fidelio. Ozawa gives it a contemporary American setting with all the action playing out on a sort of multi-level rotating cage. It’s pretty effective and efficient in allowing scenes to succeed each other quite seamlessly.
Decca have just released a 3CD set of previously unreleased recordings made by the late Jessye Norman between 1989 and 1998 with various orchestras and conductors.
The first is a series of extracts from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde recorded in Leipzig in 1998 with Kurt Masur conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Besides the Prelude there’s most of the Isolde/Brangäne scenes from Act 1 (Hannah Schwarz is Brangäne). Then comes the huge Act 2, Scene 2 duet; “Isolde! Geliebte! – Tristan! Geliebte!” etc, with Thomas Moser as Tristan, and finally, and inevitably, the “Liebestod”. It all sounds really good with the duet properly ecstatic and the “Liebestod” very moving. It’s a studio recording made in many takes so that challenging final scene doesn’t have to be sung after many hours on stage which no doubt contributes but it’s all very fine and a good record of Jessye in the role.
Ever wondered what would happen if one put two leading Japanese artist/intellectuals into a room and taped their conversations about music? No, neither had I. But that’s exactly what Absolutely on Music is. It’s a record of conversations between highly esteemed novelist Haruki Murakami and equally esteemed conductor Seiji Ozawa, translated from Japanese by Jay Rubin. It’s weirdly fascinating in a very Japanese sort of way.
The 2009 Florence recording of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen is bright, colourful, straightforward and fun but it doesn’t quite have the magic of the older Théâtre du Châtelet version. Laurent Pelly’s production is quite straightforward with attractive sets and costumes and interesting choreography from Lionel Hoche.
operaramblings 