thadieu's opera rambling outlet

radio alert

Edit: Anja Harteros’ singing Strauss last four songs. I missed the first 2min! ARGH!

——-

i missed the first part of Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno yesterday with Hillary Summers!! argh. Actually knew about it already but had a meeting around the time so knew there was no chance. The second part is tonight, along with a bunch of things looking quite promissing, here in listing format:

Today, 3/Sep/2016:
1800h GMT time (need a converter soon to eastcoast, i think around 2pm..), Il Trionfo.. 2nd part, with Hillary Summers.
2115h GMT, Alice Coote’s singing Händel, broadcast on bbc3 radio (and should be archived)

4/Sep/2016, 1730h GMT, Mitsuko Uchida’s recital from Salzburg.
4/Sep/2016, 1830h GMT, Mitsuko Uchida, again!!, playing Schönberg in London! i’m guessing Salzburg is a replay..
4/Sep/2016, 1930h GMT, Contralto Hillary Summers again, with Carolyn Sampson and The King’s Consort, singing Mendelssohn’s Paulus (whatever that is..), from Bucharest.
5/Sep/2016, 1803h GMT, Reneta Pokupic sings the role Cherubino from Ghent.
5/Sep/2016, 1930h GMT, some more Carolyn Sampson singing Händel from Bucharest. At this point i think we can conclude there must be a Händel + early music festival going on there! The nice Radio România Muzical site is offering me a “free try” to their radio player, in english 🙂 which is nice compare to my attempt to navigate Dutch at the Klara website for Il Trionfo…
6/sep/2016, 16h GMT, Anya Harteros singing Strauss 4 last song in Romania.
6/Sep/2016, 1930h GMT, back to Bucharest, they brought their packed CT package for early music!! Catone in Utica, but by Vinci, with a host of big names CT..

Händel is a great way to start early morning (if your schedule gets there!). Since missing yesterday, i went searching on tube, and found this with Amanda Forsythe! and a CT though, grrrr, but i think that must be the local CT that my hausmate once attended recital and really liked his voice.. i might also have heard him during the last BEMF ? Anyhow, here’s music to start the morning, to the new-found spirit given i finally managed to find my missing 10^8 missing energy level last noon! (ps- in case you didn’t recognize, this is the *same* music for the duet to end his “Arianna in Creta”)

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thả diều

writing-challenged opera-addict

77 responses to “radio alert”

  1. dehggial Avatar
    dehggial

    Festival Enescu is going on right now in Bucharest. Great stuff, including Stutzmann (though I can’t remember in what) and Harteros (recital on 5 Sept with Staatskapelle Dresden). They had Hallenberg singing Ariodante a few years back and generally lots of good stuff, but it’s not particularly Baroque oriented. Check out their site.

    Reply
    1. dehggial Avatar
      dehggial

      Oops, I see you’ve found AH’s recital. Catone has the same lineup as in Versailles, so for those who like CTs it’s as good as that one.

      Reply
      1. thả diều Avatar
        thả diều

        oh, but i didn’t associate her w/ the festival.. but it’s true lots is happening this week in Bucharest, it’s very nice of them to broadcast! i _love_ radio stuff from festivals.

        Reply
        1. dehggial Avatar
          dehggial

          there is also a livestreaming on the site, looks like nothing at the moment. I’d like to go one year if I time my holiday in September.

          btw, wish I’d seen your post earlier, I missed Trionfo 😦 I had to take a nap.

          Reply
          1. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            it’s ok, i like the 1st part MUCH better, the 2nd is always a bit bleh (probably due to lack of contralto in 2nd :D)

          2. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I don’t know it very well, only heard it in its complete form onece or twice. I know the most famous bits quite out of context!

          3. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            hope you’re not missing Alice Coote!! starting w/ Sta nell ircana! (it’s also archived in case missed..)

          4. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            no, I’ve been here for the past hour 😀 nice job on Sta! I love that aria so much.

          5. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            argh, i should have read your reply more carefully.. coz i could have watched harteros live last night too! 🙂 (yes, must watch!)

          6. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            yea, i was confused you wrote 6th instead of 5th, but I trusted your Harteros radar 😉

          7. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            and i got confused today looking at schedule and then saw site again and performance was last night! it turned out they replayed (after like a 3-words intro) on the radio too.. and with my confusion i missed the first 2min.. and then realized re. the video..
            (have been navigating romanian to see if there’s archives anywhere but i don’t think so :D)

          8. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            the site comes in English too, doesn’t it?

          9. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            the radio site, when click in english, it leads to different look than in native language.. (reminded me, in some asian restaurants the prices are different in native vs english 😉 )
            (and while listening, i saw a review, also in romanian, of the recital that completely butchered Harteros mentioning she’s not as good as Rene Flemming or Anna Netrebko.., clearly the person is now on my black list :p :p )

          10. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            she’s not as good as Rene Flemming or Anna Netrebko..

            At Strauss?! I spat my tea. Where is that review I am curious.

          11. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            tada, back from gigantic vietnamese noodle soup… let me look.. hm.. i can’t find the link for some reason, a woman with ph.d. in musicology and now working for radio rômania muzical..
            ps- oh, i found it..
            and while looking for it, i found yet another one. It seems either the hall’s acoustic is problematic and/or the reviewers seem to have their “favorites” from recordings and kept comparing…

          12. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            listen, she thinks that

            RF and AN are two of the most important sopranos of all time

            Nuff said. If I wanted to listen to Vier letzte Lieder AN wouldn’t be even my tenth choice. But what do I know, I don’t have a PhD in musicology. RF would be a choice, but not one of the first few.

            At least she admits she had a shit seat and is thus subjective. She also bitched about Staatskapelle Dresden and Thielemann but sucked up big time to BPO (I’ve seen other Romanian opera bloggers do that in the past). To be fair, it could’ve been nobody had a good day. But I don’t see how RF and AN are more talented than AH.

          13. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            i, with no ph.d. in musicology either, and a clear bias… 🙂
            i thought she was breathtaking, but then i no expert in this work either, in fact, i only started listening because she was singing it 😀
            but i put now the radio broadcast on the post, in case anyone is interested in listening (and freely compare to RF or AN or whoever their fav sop of all time is/was..)
            (ps- i get the impression after reading the two reviews that people who spent their time listening to recordings seem to be quite stuck on it even though attempting to sound like such and such singer not capable of delivering Strauss’ intention (i.e., it’s not the same as what i heard on my fav recording, how dare she breath differently and (de-)emphasizes at such and such place while my fav singer did Strauss intended it differently.)

          14. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            From the second review I gather the acoustics is shit in that hall. I don’t know, I’ve never seen any music anywhere in Bucharest. And at least this reviewer actually likes AH.

            It’s interesting what the second reviewer says about the work. I’ve heard a few versions in the past and it’s always struck me as a melancholic and contemplative work rather than viscerally emotional; like Strauss has come to terms with mortality.

          15. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            and i have not read the translation 😀
            the trailing.. whichever instruments they are.. same kind of instruments after the final duet in DerR.. should investigate more the work methinks

          16. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            there’s plenty versions on youtube. I for one don’t remember, haven’t listened to it in ages and perhaps never “in the right order”.

            Funny thing, the second blogger has a picture very similar to one of mine: mine and hers.

          17. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            where the cheap seats are? 😀

          18. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            well, there are lamps on every level, so she might’ve been on the balcony level 😉

          19. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            i counted *many* levels of lamps below, then the floor.. looks just like my seats at National Theater in Munich 😉

          20. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            different kind of lamps, though.

          21. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            you mean different lamps between photo and National Theater? for sure, i was thinking more the vertical view, as i often perch my head over the rail to look down 🙂

          22. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            look down for cleavage? 😉

          23. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            romeo’s back line + hair, always had been and will be 8-> (face of blinking eyes dreaming)

          24. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            Romeo’s back, be still my beating heart! (at least with shirt on 😉 ) When I saw I Capuleti, she came on too early for that Deserto e il luogo bit in Act II so we had extra time to gawk… (insert that blinking face).

          25. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            ps- yes yes, i know plenty of versions.. i’ve been there since a while today, 1st re-listening again to Harteros version from Munich (i think..), then, resisted the link to Netrebko!! and now at Jessye Norman’s , very nice…

          26. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I liked Jessye Norman’s too. You should give AN a chance, just to confirm your doubts 😉

          27. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            i know, but as you said, perhaps the 10th choice 😉

          28. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            just done w/ JN, i decided to venture to a singer who i have never listened to before but heard a very good “wagner” singer (and strauss??): Anne Schwanewilms, now that’s an immediately different take compared to both Harteros’ and JN’s. am guessing not knowing the work too well first thing i catch on is the heft of the voice (and breathing + phrasing), hers is completely different. i can see now why someone used to 1 type (this) would be jerking for a different type..

          29. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            don’t think I’ve ever heard AS, annoyingly my co-worker is writing a report here in the office (always at the last minute!) and I can’t put on music like I did last night…

          30. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            no music? let me keep you entertained with visuals.. though this one has particular effect on me, given that’s how i really saw “my” romeo from up top…

          31. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            😎 maybe I’ll get one of your nutty dreams.

          32. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            what the hell does UNFF stand for?!

          33. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            no idea 🙂 urff? uff? oof? WOOF?

            (meanwhile i’ve now made it through B.Bonney’s version of last 4 songs to piano, talk about heft, now that’s a “light” voice! now migrating to Barbara Hendricks (i have no idea who she is.., very nice voice, studio recording..))

          34. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            well, apparently that picture of Romeo is total UNFF, so I take it UNFF is something positive and dreamy. WOOF could work 😉

            I don’t know that I’ve ever heard BH either. Are you going through singers named Barbara who have sung Strauss? I wonder if Barbara Fritolli and Barbara Hannigan have…

          35. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            oh haha, didn’t get the point until i realized B.Bonney is Barbara Bonney 😉
            amazingly, i’m now at Renee Fleming, you should have suggested this just 3 min ago 😉 But true, why not Fritolli? (i can not imagine..), and who is Barbara Hannigan? good thing about this work is since it’s all new with completely different singers than Händel, one can easily drift (through all the Barbaras 😉 )
            (ps- have you ever seen the character Barbara Havers in Inspector Lynley?)

          36. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I don’t think I’ve seen Inspector Lynley. Babs Hannigan is properly mad, but quite possible up your alley: soprano/conductor and she does both at once! check her out.

          37. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            o là la

          38. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            i *might* have dream of leather cette nuit…

            (i super enjoyed her arm motions i must admit, and the precision of the orchestra responding to her.)

            (and this is quite a gear change from Strauss last 4 songs.. i think it’s the proper place to call it a night w/ that work.. so Neb didn’t quite make the list tonight ;-), but i like R. Fleming’s heft in the version i heard, just not the tempo, was dragging)

    2. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      oh WOW, i finally checked out the site, a 1 month long festival!! all sorts of goodies.. that Catone is an all-boi affair.. there’s Ullise coming up though! and Connolly as Nerone in Poppea! that’s really impressive! every other year the festival.. so i just have to find the right year where i don’t have to submit proposal and take a trek 🙂

      Reply
      1. dehggial Avatar
        dehggial

        it’s a very good festival, I’ve been checking their schedule for the past few years, since my aunt went to see piano stuff there and left a progamme at my mum’s. The local singers have been moaning that too much money goes into it instead of into better productions at the Bucharest Opera 😉 I think they are both state run…

        Reply
        1. thả diều Avatar
          thả diều

          i noticed the large number of sold-out concerts but wonder whether it’s for the local benefit as much as tourists’ . in moscow the time i visited a lot of these things were attended only be tourists who could afford..

          Reply
          1. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            my aunt’s in-laws apparently attend but they are the kind of snobbish rich people who get floor seats at ROH 😉

  2. stray Avatar
    stray

    Reggie Mobley, he subbed in the BEMF Vespers at Jordan Hall.

    Reply
    1. stray Avatar
      stray

      Also the tenor here was BEMF’s Ulisse. Everybody must go to Vancouver in the even years 🙂

      Reply
      1. thả diều Avatar
        thả diều

        Yes, i have seen/heard him before too. so it’s not Seattle they migrate to? or Berkley even year?

        Reply
    2. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      oh, not the famous Nathan something who i thought was black :D, i think we talked about this before..

      Reply
      1. stray Avatar
        stray

        Yes, the Man Who Was Not Nathan 🙂

        Reply
  3. thả diều Avatar
    thả diều

    Welcome to my rambling round. This waking up early is quite nice as I can come to the office early (though i lost my window spot, how sad..), but operating on european time is rewarding when it comes to radio broadcast..

    1) First on playlist however is not live but a replay. Don’t know why i have not listened to Maria João Pires play before.. here is an opportunity, she plays Mozart Piano concerto #23 (for my brain only a few selected piano concertos of his work, the rest sounds all the same 😀 . Distinctive, for example, is #20, #23, #22, #21… i ‘ll have to remember if there’s more. i once listened to all during my classical music infancy). But here, after a warm interview, she plays. You can hear the host explaining the mood of the piece: “The piece: laced with the most heart-warming tunes. The 1st movement: full of disarming simplicity and lyrical grace, cheerful but subdued. 2nd: the darker size emerges, poetry + heart wrenching, great thoughts personified. the anguished piano is seemingly unable to be consoled by the orchestra. 3rd: sparkling, irresistible finale, but never quite succeed in dispersing those clouds.” <– man, wish i can write like this :).
    -ps so while listening to her playing, i decided to read up a bit, and found of course this famous video of a concert setting where she realized the orchestra was playing a different concerto that what she had rehearsed.. incredible professionalism. but more importantly, if anyone can tell me which piece of Mahler was playing at the end of the video. That music, i would like to explore.

    2) next up, it has to be: Alice Coote’s Händel recital, from last night.
    — you will NEVER go wrong with Sta Nell Ircana to start a recital!

    3) Ack, 1.5 hour late to Mendelssohn, argh! Interesting, occasionally i hear German by the host.. an interview, this must be intermission… i thinking it’d be nicer if the host’s voice is a bit deeper, she’s got this strange pitch..

    Reply
    1. stray Avatar
      stray

      If you mean that bit he’s talking over, sounds like Mahler 5th.

      Reply
      1. thả diều Avatar
        thả diều

        oh thanks. yes, the last bit, with ocean waves. I made some attempts before at Mahler but i think showing up at a crowded Mahler 9 is not the proper exploration path 🙂

        Reply
      2. thả diều Avatar
        thả diều

        oh, oops, i put in the wrong link for some reason!! i mean in this one, which is the same but longer, and right after she plays it cut to ships + waves + some really lovely music while he continues to talk about Mahler, around min 4:03

        Reply
        1. stray Avatar
          stray

          4:09 is the 3rd movement of the 2nd

          Reply
          1. stray Avatar
            stray

            ie this

          2. stray Avatar
            stray

            It’s got some excellent woodwind action, but you have to like brass as well 🙂

          3. stray Avatar
            stray

            And watch your ears if you’re using headphones!

          4. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            ah ha, thanks! and thanks for the tip too! think it’ll be my listening for tomorrow morning, i on a sprint to finish off some writing with a goal to zz at midnight :).
            (i hope you’re enjoying the warm weather, i in heaven, except for today when suddenly we lost 10degC!, but am told it’ll come back tomorrow, huraah!)

          5. stray Avatar
            stray

            Yes, it’s your perfect weather! Good to know somebody’s enjoying it 🙂

            It’s okay with the heat up here, though — there’s always a breeze north of the Hudson Highlands. It’s the other side of that rock wall where things get still and awful.

  4. Eyesometric Avatar
    Eyesometric

    Meanwhile – some of us are enjoying fine ( English) weather and a Saxon Church
    http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/glouces/churches/Duntisbourne-Rouse.htm

    Reply
    1. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      :), and i enjoying Harteros on radio at the moment to your lovely link!

      Reply
  5. thả diều Avatar
    thả diều

    grrrr, after some technical difficulties.. here it is. very lovely, Anja Harteros singing Strauss last 4 songs from the festival performance last night.
    —woahhh, it’s over. that was truly breathtaking. why cant she sing longer? like songs from Rosenkavalier too!!

    Reply
    1. dehggial Avatar
      dehggial

      Hm, they don’t have it anymore. I tried listening and it was some tedious solo piano music as per their daily programme. The other day I was listening to some podcast and the violin music was just vile (sooooooooooooooo sentimental it felt like falling into a sugar coma) that I thought “I really don’t like the violin”, then I heard some Handel violin and thought “I clearly just don’t like 19the century music”.

      Reply
      1. thả diều Avatar
        thả diều

        what dont they have anymore? actually yesterday after the broadcast they played some brahms, an extended piece w violin and piano that sounds really nice. re harteros i captured and put at top of the post if thats what you were looking for?

        Reply
        1. dehggial Avatar
          dehggial

          yes, I was looking for to AH, I’ll check it out.

          Reply
          1. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I listened to it twice and quite liked it. It’s indeed very sedate but it doesn’t bother me. As the chap at the end says “her intelligently used velvety voice” worked well with the material. Cheers for the capture 🙂

          2. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            ah ha, i knew i’d gain something by keeping the interviewer’s chat at the end 😉 (though it’s true i always keep intro + exit comments so i could feel the flow)

          3. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            the chap was favourable, he said her collaboration with the orchestra and conductor well balanced (she wasn’t diva-ish) and the performance was very stylish.

  6. stray Avatar
    stray

    What’s with the fifth song in the Vier letzte Lieder?

    Reply
    1. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      oh ja, i read it somewhere.. might have been the dvd text or something? she made the exact program w/ same conductor and there they put an “extra” song.

      Reply
      1. stray Avatar
        stray

        Yeah, not a good idea.

        Reply
        1. thả diều Avatar
          thả diều

          not a good idea? perhaps you could check out the video version on tube as well? since i not as familiar i couldn’t even tell there was an extra song, only now that you mention it…

          Reply
          1. stray Avatar
            stray

            Okay, here’s the dope: Vier letzte Lieder is traditionally comprised of Fruehling, September, Beim Schlafengehen, and Im Abendrot. It can be argued that this is an artificial grouping created by Strauss’s publisher Boosey & Hawkes. The first three texts are from Hermann Hesse, the last one is Eichendorff.

            Then there’s this song Malven, text by Betty Knobel, which is I guess technically the last song Strauss wrote — for Maria Jeritza, who appears to have socked it away for some time. It’s scored for voice and piano, but was never orchestrated by Strauss. I guess they put it into this concert because a) it’s a Last Song and b) it’s a poem about a summer garden, which puts it neatly between Spring and September…which is presumably why they jacked it into the second slot in this concert.

            So it’s possible that my reaction is just a kneejerk UR DOING IT WRONG from long experience of hearing these four particular songs all together as one piece and in a particular order. On the other hand, I read that Strauss was planning to set a third Hesse poem about summer, so you could also argue that this is just an ersatz solution for a perceived gap created by Strauss not getting around to something.

            Either way, it ends up being kind of Four Last Songs and That One.

            Oh and here’s a really interesting review of the world premiere of that song in 1985, involving Kiri Te Kanawa and the one Possibly Not Evil Koch Brother.

          2. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            Thanks for the insider info Stray! i’ll check out the links and Christine Brewer! got ran over with writing as we’re sprinting to the finishing line now!

    2. stray Avatar
      stray

      2nd Rumanian blogger’s Christine Brewer recommendation is a pretty good one. Although Runnicles’ conducting is a little fluffy.

      Reply

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scientist by day, opera fan by nights and weekends.

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