#77 genuine: dramatic coloratura album (alexandrina pendatchanska)

I have left this blog for so long, I'm starting to get the guilts. I'm sorry, but the exams (of my life!) are coming up, so I won't be much around until at least after September. In the mean time I had the absolute pleasure of purchasing one of my favorite singers' album, Genuine: Dramatic Coloratura Album by the absolutely great Alexandrina Pendatchanska, or as how she goes by nowadays: Alex Penda. When I scoured the nets I couldn't find out a decent review of this album, so I think why not I put (an irreverent one of) my own?

Like most of the greats Miss Pendatchanska's instrument is never to everyone's taste. It is heavy, ponderous, extremely dark and vibrato-heavy, and sometimes wavers on pitch. By all accounts despite the impression from recordings and YouTube videos, it is not a large instrument (I heard it was the same with Callas, in which post-slimming down it was a cutting/biting voice rather than a large voice on its own. Still the best Gioconda though). But this instrument is capable of doing everything and anything the score wants (which is great) and some more besides (which is awesome!). Pendatchanska is also a kind of vocal wunderkind, performing Sempre libera at 17 (take that Lezhneva!).



We'll start from the superficialities. The cover art is to die for! It shows a picture of her, clad in black satin stole, her hands in what we call the Levine sign position, clutching both the stole and her heart. The focus is on the top of her chest and her neck, before the photo cuts off just above her lips. Et voilà: this album is all about the lungs, the heart, the voice. A bold red GENUINE stamp over her hands, and this cover instantly becomes a classic. No hassle, and definitely no overdone Photoshop bombing cf. Netrebko's Verdi disc, hehehe.

The track list is covers the last years of 18th century up to mid-19th century. The first track is the gran scena from Act 2 of Rossini's Ermione, Essa core al trionfo. This follows with two Mozart selections, Come scoglio and Donna Anna's rondo Crudele!... Non mi dir. As you may suspect Pendatchanska is someting of a Mozartienne, specialising in his crazy bats like Donne Anna and Elvira, Vitellia and her Elettra, which had to be seen to be believed.



Then comes the final scene from Anna Bolena before leaping forward to two Verdi selections (Ernani, involami and Leonora's first aria from Il trovatore), the disc closes with the final scene from Roberto Devereux.

These are my conclusions: Like Sutherland, Pendatchanska is best when the music moves. Not necessarily in fast tempi, but as long the phrase is short or medium. Unlike Sutherland, Pendatchanska wavers in long-breathed phrases. This is not to say she have breathing problems such as Netrebko, in fact she took an extremely long phrase each in the Bolena and Devereux extracts which she manages by tapering the voice to a mere wisp of sound. She has a genuine trill as can be heard on YouTube, but it is absent in this recording. The voice also have what I call the Genaux dilemma: the vibrato increases in amplitude a the voice goes up, giving a false impression that it wobbles. It does not! But the heaviness of her vibrato is definitely scary. The voice is definitely comfortable in the lower and middle ranges, but her top can be glary and her acuti surprisingly thins out, much like Leontyne Price.

For all my complaints, hers is the most committed performer I have ever heard on disc. When she orders her Oreste to kill her betrayer (in the first track), her voice adopts an eerie straight tone, which is grating on a small instrument but definitely stuff of horror movies when done by a large instrument like Pendatchanska's. She also uses this effect in the Devereux extract, depicting the dying queen with as great success as she had on the stage.



She is unafraid to use unorthodox methods to get her points across. She goes sharp and throws out her R's like crazy, for example. And when the fiorature phrases are coming you could almost hear her getting her gears on (small swallowing sounds etc - I blame the recording engineers/mic placement). Her recitative work is first class, as can be expected from a Mozartienne and Handel specialist. That said, I find her Mozart selections in this disc a bit lacking. She does everything right, even the crazy leaps from the Così excerpt and the crazy long cadenza in Non mi dir, but I wish she included Elettra's arias instead.




The orchestra is the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eralso Salmieri. God forgives me, I don't know this guy but he conducts Mozart and belcanto as if painting by-the-numbers. The Bolena excerpt lacks imagination, ditto the Don Giovanni. At least he is responsive to Pendatchanska's needs. The album also features guest artists who, God forgives me, mar the recording with their contribution, but thankfully not enough.

Verdict: BUY IT, GODDAMN IT!!! Sell your house, sell your kidneys, your babies!!

#73 baroque goodness

I have been listening to two albums of the Baroque genre, showcasing two technically accomplished and aurally extrovert performers of dare I say it, the same fach, namely Joyce DiDonato and Simone Kermes. Miss DiDonato may identify herself as a mezzo-soprano, but what I hear in her voice is a short soprano, of the same ilk as Frederica von Stade, Magdalena Kožená and the early Cecilia Bartoli (the post-milennium Bartoli is another monster altogether). And that's okay in my books, I love these type of singers. There's always something very heart-aching in their voices - to be technical, this is because their vibrato rates are rapid, flickering, so you'd never mistake it for an instrument the way more seasoned Baroque performers like say, Vivica Genaux and Simone Kermes herself, can be.

Miss DiDonato's Drama Queens is a respectable effort. Alan Curtis leads the Complesso Barocco: they are known quantities. As is often nowadays in fashionable Baroque compilations, this album includes world premiere recordings such as Madre diletta, abbriacciami from Giovanni Porta's Ifigenia in Aulide and rarities like Keiser's Fredegunda and Octavia excerpts. The album opens with Da torbida procella from Orlandini's Berenice, a spitfire of an aria. Miss DiDonato's timbre, with that slightly acerbic edge, helps her especially with the text. On the other hand one often finds her voice swamped under the orchestration (surprising, considering she's singing Strauss' Composer and Octavian to rave reviews) and when she pulls the straight voice it sounded almost jarring. The coloratura holds no terror for her, but I notice she performs slightly better in the middle voice compared to her upper range, consistent with many observations that her topmost notes are not of the same quality as they used to be.

I find the Giulio Cesare in Egitto excerpt to be wanting. There are stretches when the vibrato simply vanished from the voice and we're left with a wisp of a voice. Cleopatra is an empress not a lady-in-waiting: her grieve should have been gigantic, awe-inspiring, not simply human. The middle section, while fury-laden enough, is not in the same class as Kermes' version in her Cuzzoni tribute album. Another Cleopatra-inspired piece, Hasse's Morte, col fiero aspetto is miles better, with Miss DiDonato's voice climbing up and up as if challenging her passagio to a duel. Her mini-cadenza, before the coda, is also very beautiful.

Miss DiDonato seems to have a preference for the Porta aria. While I find her approach to the siciliana wonderful, I find her most delectable, however, in Intorno all'idol mio, a very famous piece included in the Arie antiche collection. There is a powerful moment when her straight voice is employed to implore the wind to bring her kisses to her estranged lover. The recitative in the middle is exemplary work, and her final Addio's are heart-wrenching. I do believe she sustains a 30-second F# piano at the end of the piece.

On to Miss Kermes. Opening her album Dramma is an excerpt from De Majo's Arianna e Teseo. One hears a strange trick: as if the orchestra is playing over the phone, or from an old phonograph, before cresting in a wonderful forte. What a clever duck! I don't know whether it's better balance, equipment, acoustics or player spacing, but I find the sound from La magnifica comunità to be more aurally persuasive than that of Il complesso barocco. For example, the introduction to Le limpid'onde is absolutely atmospheric I expected to hear chirping birds and rushing brooks every time I hear it.

The Kermes instrument may be a controversial one - especially live - but her album efforts are always worthwhile, and I always find it very surprising when a very slender timbre such as hers can find the coloration for example, in Tace l'augello from Porpora's L'Agrippina, and the famous Rinaldo piece Lascia ch'io pianga. For coloratura-fanciers, Miss Kermes does not disappoint in arias like Vedra turbato il mare, where her downward runs figure very wonderfully. In Sul mio cor, one finds her defying gravity with octave leaps and excursion into chest voice, all within the first four measures of her entrance.

That is not to say Dramma is a perfect essay. One finds the timbre to be a bit blanche and jarring. On the other hand it is no less expressive. The top notes can sometimes sound glassy, shrill-ish even. But the larger picture remains intact, that Dramma is a wonderful album and worthy of any Baroque fans' shelves.

#72 the dilemma

I'm still alive, duh.

For the past few ages I've been away, first to face one of the most important exams of my life - the fourth year exit exam of medic school. I passed (thank God!), although there were certain things which I could have done better. There was the practical exams (the OSCEs) in which I thoroughly bombed the stations for Orthopaedics and Paediatrics, the former because I was a klutz with no sense of organisation and the latter because it was the first-station jitters. The MCQs being MCQs (I forgot the exact number of questions already but it was certainly more than 120) made me so tired and cold and subsequently sleepy (damn hall air-conds!). The long case was fun, though. I got an easy case, CCF with diabetic complications, the patient was very cool, the examiners were helpful because God knows I was babbling like my life depended on it. Case in point: I couldn't even get the word "BUSE/CREAT" out for five minutes (they were asking for a lab investigation for kidney function), the examiners had to twirl around and around to get it out of me, and they looked intensely relieved the moment it rolled out of my tongue I couldn't help mumbling "I'm sorry".

Then, I went for a LONG-DESERVED HOLIDAY and an awesome elective posting in the Emergency Department of Queen Elizabeth Hospital 1 Kota Kinabalu. The department people was awesome, and our supervisor was one really cool guy who made 'disaster' sounds like an attractive word. I stayed in God-forsaken Petagas, which turned out to be quite a charming suburb area, and went back to Bongawan for the weekends on the NEW TRAIN! NEW TRAIN! NEW TRAIN!

The sea view from the train, about fifteen minutes away from my home.

These two are so cute, but they're probably brothers.

Holiday activity: searching for rubber tree seeds! And they pay you, too! (RM 3 for each measly kilo)

This is my wallpaper now.

Holiday activity: DIY crafts. I sucked.

Then I went back. Boo. Ah well, my first posting for the fifth year was Accident and Emergency. It wasn't like my electives though, because the HOD was quite hands-on with our lot. She even asked me a question (an easy anatomy question, but it was awesome that she even noticed me), and told me she looked like one of her employees: which I don't really adore but hey, you suck it up.

Last weekend I went to a CME held by Philips Respironics, apparently they make CPAP devices. It was the first formal symposium thingy I attended, but it was on a Sunday so maybe it didn't count? There was talk from a really nice sleep lab - I guess the word is owner, because he's actually a cardiologist, and another one from a sleep medicine specialist who looked really young. And really tall. Uh.

Anyway the CME was really nice. It was on obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is the fancy term for snoring, hehe. Now, despite having several risk factors for this condition I amazingly did not have it (confirmed by my mother), and I speculated that this was because my tongue and oral passages have a higher muscle tone from all that wailing Massenet, Puccini, Strauss and Verdi. Which is kind of contradictory because as most vocal pedagogues would tell you muscle tension is a definite booboo in classical singing, at least the Italian school.

Which brings me to another point: during the holidays I've been experimenting with tenor techniques from this wonderful pedagogic website, in particular what he called the 'wail' and the 'cry', and to my amazement I managed to stay on F# and Gs forever! There was no muscle tension, my neck didn't look like I was choking myself, and my tongue stayed clear out of the emission (a real big problem for me, as I flip higher than F I tend to roll my tongue backward and produce this crazy muffled mezzo-sopranoish timbre, which on the plus side can go up to F#5 but probably sounded like a duck's squawk in a hall - you should hear me sing O don fatale sometimes, I camp it up better than La Bumbry - how can you not, when you have the chest of a baritone and the head voice of a contralto!). The notes higher up also sounded clearer, but I still like my D's and Eb's the best. Hence the dilemma: Am I a short tenor alla Domingo in disguise? (Gasp!)

... TO BE CONTINUED

#68 the birthday post #24

Tomorrow I'll be 23. Such a lovely little number. By that time I would have been away from my family for ALMOST half of my life. Makes one think of many missed things.

I am not a birthday bitch per se, I don't mind anyone not saying "Happy Birthday" to me on the streets or surprising me with a cake and presents. Which is weird because I remember my 8th birthday was a really big thing - my mom arranged for a party, and lots of my friends came over, and we had this huge cake (which made me barf, I hate creamy pastries) and posed for pictures like starlets. My favourite picture was one in which I sat on my mom's lap, possibly the last time I was small enough to do so.

I miss those early years, when you see the world through frosted glasses, when everything was beautiful and warm and friendly, because I tell you the first five years away from my family (namely, high school) was hell. I was really alone and scared that people were going to call me out for being a phony, that I didn't belong with the 'elites', that I didn't deserve my place in MCKK. I showed those bitches, but I got hurt, got scarred plenty in the way.

Front row, second from right. I was such a twink back then.

Then of course after SPM when everything got shaken up, got strewn away. I went to India for two years, and in one of my tours saw the great fortress of Mehrangarh. I saw the Taj, I saw snow for the first time, I saw lonely tombs in the Jaisalmer desert, but no memory was as vivid as seeing a wall at a massive gate at Mehrangarh, a wall of palms which was painted deep scarlet, which bore numerous palm prints of various sizes, the smallest was probably a child of ten years old. It was the wall on which the womenfolk of princes and warriors stamped their palm before going on ritual sacrifice as their men, aware that the kingdom was lost, fought the battlefield to the death.

On to happier things: on occasion of my sweet 24th, I had composed several works. I completed Laguan buat gadis desa, designated Op 34 and Op 35 (orchestral version) respectively. I wrote a French mélodie, which I count as a personal achievement (I wrote both the music and text in one night, I was heavily caffeine-ated). I also wrote a concert aria for baritone in the cantabile-cabaletta style entitled Bagaikan purnama bercahaya... Menarilah, designated Op 39. The range is monstrous: from G2 to Bb4, but the highest notes are intended to be sung in voix-mixte, and personally if I can sing it then it should be okay for a professional baritone. It was originally perceived in March after the verdict on the Tyler Clementi case, but I had waited until now to release it in its full-grown form. The lyrics were painstaking in its composition, but I completed it, and provided an Italian translation.



Doux solitaire

Je reste tout seul au bord de l'eau grise,
le ciel est pâle, le soleil trop froid,
mais je sens un bonheur suprême, 
dans un silence si profond. 

Un silence si profond, 
si bleu, si grave, si sombre, 
qu'il me rend si délirant, 
comme des beaux yeux amoureux. 

Je reste tout seul au bord de l'eau grise, 
le ciel est pâle, le soleil trop froid, 
mais moi, je suis en extase 
en temps si languissant.

Bagaikan purnama bercahaya... Menarilah!
(Come la luna... Ah piedi dolci!)


CANTABILE:
Bagaikan purnama bercahaya
dengan diiring langkah kejora.
Seribu keindahan wajahmu sayang,
sungguh ku rindukan senyumanmu,
kekasih idaman.

Di mana kau yang ku idam?
datang padaku, oh sayang!
Jangan kau hampakan hatiku,
jangan engkau lupakan diriku,
intan.

Dengarlah seruanku, sayang
Memanggil nama-namamu
yang penuh keindahan
Datanglah semula, kan ku setia
ku sumpah! akan setia.

Malam tak bersinar tanpa bulan,
malam kelam, kerawanan.
Oh, kembalilah pujaan!
Sayang, dengarlah seru
memanggil kepulangan!

CABALETTA:
Menarilah! dengan rentak bergaya
menari dengan gembira
menyahut suara pujangga,
sementara menantiku kan tiba
sampaiku di pintu syurga.

Jangan terlupa akan janji
kita berdua bersama
kan ku datang, oh sayang
di hujung dunia, tunggu sahaja.

Menari dengan gembira!
nantiku di pintu syurga!
Berdua! bersama! bersama!

ITALIANO:
Come la luna, bella e bianca,
che riflette il bacio da una stella,
è la bellezza tua sulle tue rosse labbra,
ti manchera ancor, ti manchera,
mio amore, mia vita.

Dov'è quella perduta?
ritorni a me, pietà!
Io che senza di te, non posso
pensare niente di più, 
son senza vergogna.

Ascolta quel'accenti miei
che chiamano i bei nomi, mille tuoi nomi:
Giuro, fedele sarò, si, si, lo giuro, 
col sangue mio! fedele sarò

Notte troppo scura senza luna,
notte stanca, funesta.
Ah! ritorni a me, ritorni ancor!
Amor, ascolta: mia tutta angoscia ti richiama!

Ah piedi dolci! ballate allora
ballate con tutti i grazie e gioventù, senza paura
mentre di me, col mio arrivo colà,
saremo, cara, insieme ancora.

Te ricordi bene la promessa 
che la tua mano in me
coi miei pianto ha scritto che il tutto,
tutto nostro amor vivrà ancor in cielo!

Io con te, vivremo in ciel,
insieme ancor, con te sarò
con te sarò, sarò!

#62 the enchanted island audio stream review

Daniels vs DiDonato (hint: TEAM SYCORAX!!)

Happy New Year!

First off, the two main characters: Prospero and Sycorax. David Daniels had long been a very important counter--tenor, if not in Europe then in the Americas, so I was prepared to give a leeway. His tone was still gorgeous as long as it remained within his mid-high register; everywhere else and it's a hit-or-miss situation. His coloratura is laboured, and some of his figures were 'spattered'. He attempted large leaps (à la Horne) but these largely failed. His diction is still exemplary among counter-tenors though, and I think his is the only counter-tenor who is able to make his nuances heard at the Met without over-stretching himself.

On the other hand Joyce DiDonato is a pleasure to hear to. Her voice had gained in edge and overdrive which she used effectively in her coloratura, suggesting 'rage' and 'vengeance'. Her diction was the best, followed very closely by Danielle's Ariel, and this considering aria, scene and recitative works. Her over-driven chest voice sounded rather un-Orthodox, even extreme at times, but it was all to serve the drama. THE DRAMA!!



Danielle De Niese' Ariel was at times pleasant to hear. Like the current Daniels, hers is an instrument best enjoyed within certain limits: not too high, not too low, not too fast. When going too high the instrument break out into the infamous 'glare' now well-known to her audiences. When too fast her coloratura becomes smudged and almost illiterate, however that's happily a rare occasion in this outing. Dani's recitative works was also very impressive, she certainly knew how to play with the accents and the rhythm of the speech.

Luca Pisaroni presented a dilemma: a fascinating, rich instrument incapable of movement. His cantabile is wonderful but his passage-work is frankly a mess.

Lisette Oropesa's Miranda was interesting, but lacking in style. Even Dani was at least entrenched in the Handelian mode. I suspect Oropesa may do better in bel canto setting, probably as La sonnambula's Lisa.

Layla Claire's instrument sounds similar to Danielle's, which sometimes confused me because her line is much cleaner! She had a genuine trill, albeit for two seconds only (the best trill of the night belongs to Joyce, in a passage-work no less!).

Anthony Roth Costanzo's Ferdinand suffered from the dread wooble. What is happening with today's counter-tenors? Maybe it's the 'prima' nerves, but it's sad because it's a very beautiful instrument.

The lovers' quartet (tenor Paul Appleby as Demetrius, soprano Layla Claire as Helena, baritone Elliot Madore as Lysander, and especially mezzo Elizabeth DeShong as Hermia) was amusingly enchanting. Their entrance quartet was wonderful, though later another quartet suffers from 'over-Romanticism' i.e. too much vibrato for Baroque voicing. Elizabeth DeShong's Hermia was especially impressive: she was given Dejanira's mad scene from Handel's Hercules, and there she was singing, with Joyce DiDonato, the premier exponent of Dejanira, in the wings, and she kicked the ball out of the park! Mr. Madore's baritone was gorgeous, and his passage-work while maintaining the theme of 'male singers can't do runs' was cleaner than Pisaroni. I cannot be cruel to someone named Appleby, but I don't need to because Mr. Appleby was amazing! His messa di voce was quite wondrous.

And Domingo. I had a suspicion there's a clause somewhere in his contract saying "No A's or above". His was the richest timbre of the cast, I'd give him that, and what he lacked in style he certainly made up with tons and tons of morbidezza and sheer balls.

William Christie's conducting, more at home in Baroque music, was wonderful, keeping up to pace in the virtuosic parts while maintaining an airy souciance at slower and mid-tempo sections. I had a theory that the Met plays better Baroque when the tempo is slower, because at allegro or faster the runs and figures sounded robotic and bloodless. It's really hard to explain but I think it's because at slower tempi when the strings are allowed to sing, the orchestra really comes to its own. The chorus was magnificent, tons better than the Bolena run definitely. The ballet-masque music, adapted from Rameau, was wonderful, especially the strings and the bassoons - just delicious. Generally the music is better when it's adapted from Handel, as compared to perhaps Vivaldi. Rameau's genius was his ballet pieces just sounded good no matter if the orchestra is not really a ballet-oriented orchestra.

The English libretto was quite good, though at times I do wish they'd stick with the Shakespearean mentality instead of giving quasi-street parlance vibes. Case in point: Prospero's "To save my girl from heartbreak", can't they substitute "girl" with "daughter", just divide the beat into a dotted eighth and a sixteenth. Ah well.

All in all, 4.25 out of 5. A well-deserved turn for Baroque music at the greatest opera house of the world, at last.

#56 weapons of mass destruction

Say something nice: Hey, this is an AIDS event so I'd refrain from any cattiness. Um, SiKer's wig can probably win Miss Universe, bring world peace and prove Martians exist with its own bare er, tendrils?

Vivi looks wonderful, and Simone looks like a rock diva. 

#54 anna bolena review

This is my opinion about the Met's opening night/premiere of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, which at the time of writing just wrapped up. Disclaimer: This is audio impression only.

Anna Netrebko (Regina Anna Bolena): Super! However her singing is a bit uneven. A lot of phrasing was cut right when you expect the phrase to flow on smoothly. Her pianissimo high Cs and Bs were lovely. Her trio with Percy and the King(?) was really good. Take on final scene: love love love the "Al dolce guidami", a few good, real trills earlier on then fake-d trills (up untill Coppia). Hate the "Cielo a miei lunghi spasimi", a lot of phrases got murdered, but good high note (a D in alt I think). "Coppia iniqua" was smashing (fake trills notwithstanding)! Overall a success IMHO.

Ekaterina Gubanova (Donna Giovanna Seymour): She's WILDLY uneven. Some singing was extremely beautiful, some like a student trying to figure out how to sing Fs and Gs. But the consensus is the voice was too weighty for Seymour. The best singing was in her final aria, "Ah pensate che rivolti". Her scenes with the King fell flat, her and Ildar's voices just don't mix well. I was thinking how would Garanca (supposedly the Seymour for this production, but had to skip due to pregnancy) have sung each phrase everytime Gubanova sang.

Tamara Mumford (Smeton): I like her. I like her Smeton very much. Her voice had that fast, tight vibrato which I always adore. Her arias (as such that they were) were well-sung, and the caught-red-handed scene (at the end of act I) was nice. I wished she had traded parts with Gubanova! - there, I said it.

Stephen Costello (Don Riccardo Percy): Oh Costello. The biggest disappointment, for sure. The voice was attractive enough, but sounded suspiciously not warmed up. His pianissimo high notes sounded like falsetto, not a good voix-mixte that's for sure. I wonder if it travelled in the house. Near the end he sounded just plain tired. And he lunged all over the place for his high notes, and in the second act also for the notes which are not exactly the apex (i.e. the hardest to reach) of his phrases. It sounded a bit like groaning springs, sometimes - Il Scoopendo, indeed. His "Vivi tu" was fine, but the cabaletta was deeply disappointing. Sad.

Ildar Abdrazakov (Re Enrico VIII): It's hard to judge Ildar because today is his birthday!! He sounded good, but his bottom notes just mysteriously disappeared. I mean, he's a bass right? Needs to improve his coloratura though - his runs and figures sounded throaty and almost-a-trainwreck-but-not-quite-yet.

Marco Armiliato, Met orchestra and chorus: Nice, but some section lacking in impetus. Marco needs to man up and drive the tempo more, especially when Netrebko begins dragging. But overall, good playing. The English horn solo for "Al dolce guidami" is really good. Chorus: not as good. Off night? Un-sync entrances, tremors (especially the ladies).


Overall impression: 3.5 out of 5, not an ideal performance but a pretty good justification for Anna Bolena's first ever performance at the Met. Shame about Costello (probably nerves), but the opera *is* about Anna. Ah well.

#53 Tosca (Puccini) - Leontyne Price, Giuseppe di Stefano, Giuseppe Taddei

TOSCA (1963)
GIACOMO PUCCINI
HERBERT VON KARAJAN Conductor
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra & State Opera Chorus

Tosca ... Leontyne Price
Mario Cavaradossi ... Giuseppe di Stefano
Scarpia ... Giuseppe Taddei
Angelotti ... Carlo Cava
Sacristan ... Fernando Corena
Spoletta ... Piero de Palma
Sciarrone ... Leonardo Monreale
Shepherd boy ... Herbert Weiss
Prison guard ... Alfredo Mariotti

*Includes cover picture, libretto & vocal score

#50 disappoinment, but hope for the future

I bought Julia Lezhneva's debut solo CD yesterday, after hearing some good things from friends, Classical review forums and after watching some of her YouTube clips. However, sad to say it turns out to be quite a disappointment. Perhaps there's a part of me that wants her to succeed, because she's the same age as me - hence the feeling of letdown.

Miss Lezhneva chose some of Rossini's most famous output for what I call the femme-hybrid category - these arias had been sung successfully by all category of female voices: sopranos, mezzo-sopranos and even contraltos. The voice' main selling point is not its mature-sounding timbre, but rather its liquidity. She manages the fast passages very well, and although some phrasing choices left me baffled (she chose some figures which made the Willow Song more upbeat instead of lilting, for example) she is generally a good musician.

Her French recording company, Naïve (Freudian slip much?), promotes Miss Lezhneva based on her precocious maturity. IMHO, there are a lot of examples of early-maturing female voices. The mechanism and physiology of the female vocal production, favouring head over chest voice, just make it easy for them to mature at least a decade earlier than their male counterparts. Alexandrina Pendatchanska comes to mind. Her voice sounds even more mature at seventeen (we used to joke that Alexandrina was born thirty-year old vocally, and hence is now at the peak of her career at seventy vocal years old!) compared to Lezhneva's at twenty-one. Cecilia Bartoli is another. Beverly Sills and Marilyn Horne both matured early. Maria Callas was performing when she was a teenager. So this point, suggesting early-matured voices are rare, is moot.

Looking at the tracks, there are some interesting choices. I am grateful for every recording of the Willow Song: in my opinion Rossini's Otello is not recorded enough, and any recording is welcome. Lezhneva also recorded Tanti affetti and the rondo finale from La donna del lago, Bel raggio lusinghier from Semiramide, the final scene from La cenerentola, Ils s'éloignent enfin from Guillaume Tell and the prayer aria from L'Assedio di Corinto. The same characteristic apply for all of these excerpts: that she manages coloratura well, but made some strange, but not unmusical, choices.

In Tanti affetti, for example, Lezhneva forces the lowermost notes at the bottom of the scales (Oh qual beato istante) needlessly: it gives rise to a harsh, even guttural sound which is certainly the farthest thing from bel canto. In the Cenerentola excerpt, a most iconic scene, she fares better; however one wishes for more variation in the rondo finale. I am sorry to say this, but Lezhneva's Bel raggio (another iconic scene) is very pallid. Her voice simply doesn't have the morbidezza (at this point) to bring justice to this majestic music. And it's not about the size of her voice; for example: Joyce diDonato is at most a medium-size instrument, but her voice has tons of morbidezza. Lezhneva's Semiramide is a junior queen, a princess, a twink.

Her Guillaume Tell excerpt suffers, strangely, from a frayed high register. Perhaps she was tired? The Willow Song is lovely enough, but Marc Minkowski, her conductor, chooses a too fast tempo. This is where she could have shone: the aria does not climb too high, and when done in a suitable tempo, can bring out the most of her exceptionally lovely, if a bit thin and core-less at times, timbre. Her articulation of the variations was merely "doing", as opposed to "indicating" the increasing complexity and turmoil of Desdemona's mind. Giusto ciel! in tal periglio also suffers similarly.

I am a grouch! Miss Lezhneva is clearly a budding artist, and I fear I have been rather severe. I think she has a lovely voice, but should have taken more time, less to perfect than to gain an understanding of her craft (everyone today knows "how to?", but no one seems to know "why?"). But she is young: she will grow into a formidable artist. I hear she has a new Vivaldi CD out, which fared better. I will follow her career with interest, and hope the best for her success.

#40 gurindam indah pusaka (lied no 3, aus "6 lieder für eine dorfschönheit")

#34 holiday b-job

I have been having the absolute time of my life, doing my best impression of a rich divorcee, lounging around the house and cooking spaghetti, while also making up time to indulge in:
1. learning how to ride a motorcycle (glory Hallelujah!)

(in my case it was a blue bike, but I think it's pretty much the same model)

2. discovering how chromatic one can go and still have it sound right. Case in point:

But holiday's almost over, I'm registering in the local campus of my university in a week (how time flees when you're orchestrating bloody murder of the diatonic scale!) and these good times are nearing an end.

#22 hallelujah!

Petrucci Library (the most awesome site in the world, barring La Cieca and Manga Fox) finally has a copy of the score for Bellini's last gift to humanity: I Puritani. Granted, the copy is a little bit blurry but nevertheless one must be thankful. Merry Christmas!

And while I do think the late and lamented Dame Sutherland's version of the polonaise in The Art of The Prima Donna album is basically the most ideal, Mme. Sills (another recent major loss to coloratura-dom) comes close with her infectious voce ridente, intelligent variations and that! - that beautiful trill. You flaunt it, girl!

#21 amazeballs

The Eighth Wonder of The World:

Qual guerriero in campo armato (BROSCHI)


Qual guerriero in campo armato
Pien di forza e di valore
Nel mio core innamorato
Sdegno e amor fanno battaglia.

Il timor del dubbio evento
Il dolore ed il cimento
L'alma mia confonde ed abbaglia.


Vivica GENAUX, goddess of coloratura


(apparently, this video/recording has reached legendary status, thanks to one admirer at Amazon.com)