CLASSIC11, \It HI( is filled up with a brooding performance of ORPHEUS IN THE nine early songs by Rachmaninoff. J.J. SZYMANOWSKI: Violin Concertos OPERA WORLD Nos. 1 and 2; Three Paganini Caprices; Romance. IIhe story of Orpheus, the mythical aria, "I ai perdu mon Eurydice." throbs Mamas Zehetmair (violin): Silke Avenhaus father of music and song who with Romantic sensibility. (piano): City of Birmingham Symphony. Simon goes down to Hades to rescue his lady William Christie, the King Midas of Rattle cond. FMI 55607 (65 min). love Eurydice, has always exerted a French Baroque opera, has discovered Performance: Eloquent strong pull on the imaginations of opera yet another opera on the Orpheus theme, Recording: First-rate composers, from Monteverdi, whose Charpentier's La Descente d'Orphee iolinist Thomas Zehetmair and conduc- Otfeo was the medium's first great work, aux Enfers (Orpheus's Descent into tor Simon Rattle, without the slightest to Philip Glass. The most influential Hades). The anonymous librettist exaggeration, very effectively point up the Orpheus opera, and perhaps the most followed Ovid closely but apparently contrasting character of Szymanowski's movingly beautiful, is Gluck's Orphee et truncated the story at the point when two one -movement concertos. No. I, from Eurydice. For the first time all the the lovers are reunited in Hades, the early 1920's, is roughly contemporane- dialogue was accompanied by the conveniently omitting the legend's ous with the composer's opera King Roger orchestra, and arias were free -flowing, tragic denouement. and breathes the mysticism and exoticism no longer governed by the restrictive Not a lavish spectacle for the royal that so intrigued him at that time. The conventions of Baroque music. Orphee court but a modest chamber piece, the somewhat less familiar No. 2, actually the et Eurydice has been called the "birth little opera runs just under an hour in very last large-scale work he lived to com- of modern opera." Christie's Erato recording. The first act plete, is from the period of his ballet Har- opens joyously with the wedding of itasie and reflects the nationalist tendencies Orpheus and Eurydice; after the bride is operative then. The kind of advocacy both 1 bitten by a serpent, Orpheus retunes his concertos receive here - at once thought- lyre to a minor key of lament. In the ful and probing and charged with a high second act, he relieves the suffering of level of brilliance - may be just what is en the damned with his melodies and needed to boost these beautiful works into beseeches Pluto, god of the underworld, the general repertory at last. to release his beloved. The god relents Unlike Fritz Kreisler, who provided pi- but warns him not to look back on his ano accompaniment for some of the Pagani- way out of Hades. Orpheus's final, ni caprices. Szymanowski dealt with three prophetic line, "Ah! How tender Orpheus of them (Nos. 20. 21. and, inevitably, 24) must fear himself!" suggests that there by leaving the violin writing more or less may have been a third act, now lost, with unaltered and creating wholly original pi- the original unhappy conclusion. ano commentary, generally in a directly Christie leads Les Arts Florissants and contrasting vein. The voluptuously appeal- a fine cast of singers with his usual ing Romance. Op. 23. the earliest piece on verve, captured in an intense, reverberant the disc, is by no means a trifle - at least recording. The debate between Orpheus not as set forth here, with instinctive ele- and Pluto is sung in fiery fashion gance as well as full, ripe tone. Silke Aven- by tenor Paul Agnew and bass -baritone haus is as sympathetic a partner at the key- Fernand Bemadi, with some lively board as Rattle is on the podium. and the Jennifer Larmore: a passionate Orphee interjections by soprano Monique Zanetti sound is first-rate throughout. R.F. as Proserpine. Soprano Sophie Daneman sings Eurydice's lone aria with lovely TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 Overture (arr. A fine new Teldec recording, made at clarity. Jamie James Buketoff); The Voyevoda; The Sleeping George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch, uses a Beauty (excerpts); Moscow Cantata. version orchestrated by Hector Berlioz. OLUCK: Orphee et Eurydice. Svetlana Furdul (mezzo-soprano): Though it is played on modem instru- Dawn Upshaw (Eurydice). Jennifer Larmore Vassily Gerello (baritone); Dallas Symphony ments, by the San Francisco Opera led (Orphee), Alison Hagley (Amor); Chorus and Orchestra, Andrew Litton cond. by the Scottish conductor Donald Orchestra and Chorus of San Francisco os 3196 (78 min). Runnicles, the sound has much of the Opera. Donald Runnicles cond. Performance: Spirited vigor and vivid color of a performance Tirt.orc 98418 (two CD's. 109 min). Recording: Chorus way back on old instruments, yet with the modern While there have been more than a few advantage of heightened elasticity. The CHARPENTIER: La Descente recordings of the 1812 Overture with French text is exquisitely sung by d'Orphee aux Enfers. a chorus brought in - some in the Igor mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore and Sophie Daneman (Eurydice), Monique Buketoff arrangement used here, others soprano Dawn Upshaw in the title roles. Zanetti (Proserpine), Paul Agnew (Orphee). saving the chorus till the very end - I re- Larmore brings a Berliozian power and Fernand Bemadi (Pluton), others: main stubbornly unpersuaded that it's a passion to Orphee's music, and her Les Arts Florissants, William Christie cond. good idea, even by performances as spirited interpretation of the opera's best-known ERATO 11913 (56 min). as this one led by Andrew Litton. Opening the 1812 with a chorus is far less imagina- tive and evocative than the wordless cellos great Russian composers in the line of Pro- ever, is anything but folkish: The religious Tchaikovsky called for. In this recording. kofiev and Shostakovich.- Shostakovich. allegories of Sergei Esenin, written around though, once past that introductory section who was Sviridov's teacher, is the more the time of the Revolution, are highly so- the sonic focus places the chorus so far out pertinent point of reference. The dark. jag- phisticated and luminously beautiful. of range that it isn't much of an intrusion. ged tonalities of the cycle, composed in Sviridov couldn't have hoped for a more That generally backward placement of 1977. are reminiscent in both mood and accomplished and committed champion the chorus works to the pronounced disad- musical methodology of Shostakovich's than Hvorostovsky, who is accompanied vantage of the cantata Moscow, however. gloomy, magnificent From Jewish Folk Po- with fire and polish by his usual recital This rarely heard work, composed for the etry, Op. 79. The poetry in this case, how - partner, pianist Mikhail Arkadiev. The disc coronation of Tsar Alexander III in 1883, is

120 STEREO REVIEW DECEMBER 1996