Camilla Nylund Wagner & Strauss Arias & Scenes Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra • Hannu Lintu Richard Wagner (1813–1883) 1 Einsam in trüben Tagen (Elsa’s Dream) Lohengrin 5’49 2 Dich teure Halle (Elisabeth’s Greeting to the Hall of Song) Tannhäuser 4’54 3 Allmächt’ge Jungfrau (Elisabeth’s Prayer) Tannhäuser 5’27 4 Der Männer Sippe (Sieglinde’s Narration) Die Walküre 4’51 5 Mild und leise (Isolde’s Transfiguration) Tristan und Isolde 6’15 Richard Strauss (1864–1949) 6 Mein Elemer! Arabella (Viola solo: Mihail Slobodjaniuk) 9’02 7 O bleib, geliebter Tag! Daphne 9’35 8 Es gibt ein Reich Ariadne auf Naxos 6’09 9 Es ist kein Laut zu vernehmen Salome (final scene) 19’54 3 CAMILLA NYLUND , soprano Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra (Leader: Dennis Kim) HANNU LINTU , conductor Publisher: Boosey and Hawkes (Richard Strauss) Recording: Tampere Hall, Finland 16.–19.9.2010 A 24-bit recording in DXD (Digital eXtreme Definition) Executive Producer: Reijo Kiilunen Recording Producer: Seppo Siirala Recording Engineer: Enno Mäemets – Editroom Oy P 2010 Ondine Inc., Helsinki C 2010 Ondine Inc., Helsinki Booklet Editor: Jean-Christophe Hausmann Photos: Matthias Creutziger (Camilla Nylund), Heikki Tuuli (Hannu Lintu) Lyrics for track 7 (O bleib, geliebter Tag!) : © 1938 by Richard Strauss. U.S. copyright renewed. Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. Cover Design and Booklet Layout: Eduardo Nestor Gomez This recording was produced with support from the Finnish Performing Music Promotion Centre (ESEK). candinavian singers in German repertoire are not only a vocal enrichment, they also have a long tradition. Whether Danes, Swedes, Norwegians or singers from Finland – which, with a Spopulation of just over five million, has produced an astonishing number of world-class vocalists – voices from the far North excel both in Mozart Singspiele and the lyric and heavy roles of Wagner and Strauss. Scandinavians have been the proud exponents of this repertoire throughout the world, and new, strong but lean voices regularly emerge. Is it their assertiveness, the fact that they negotiate the hard German consonants more easily, the solid brilliance of the upper register, often based on a secure foundation in the middle register, is it their resilience? Or is it simply excellent training? Camilla Nylund cannot explain the connection either; she can only confirm that it exists. The slender blonde was predestined for this repertoire, however. Born in Vaasa, Camilla Nylund is a member of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. German is thus linguistically closer for her than for the Finnish-speaking Finns, whose language is related to Estonian and Hungarian. In addition, after her early years of training she studied with Eva Illes in the 4 opera and Lied class at the Salzburg Mozarteum. The artist, who has won numerous awards at competitions, was an ensemble member of the Lower Saxony State Opera in Hannover from 1995 to 1999 before joining the ensemble of the Saxon State Opera in Dresden for two years. She lives in Dresden with her family and still regards the Semperoper as her permanent home, where she was able to try out and develop various roles, particularly the Strauss repertoire. ‘It was wonderful to have a kind of professional family here, to be able to prepare myself for new roles in peace. Dresden is an ideal location, cultured, in the heart of Europe. You are recognized, but you do not have to constantly subject yourself to a hectic travel schedule.’ Camilla Nylund received the Christel Goltz Prize in 2000 and was awarded the title of Kammersängerin by the State of Saxony in 2008. She recently added the role of Daphne to her impressive Strauss repertoire in Dresden, and in summer 2011 she will appear as Elisabeth in a new production of Tannhäuser at Bayreuth, conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock and directed by Sebastian Baumgarten. ‘It’s a good idea to release my first CD of arias from these roles now, since it reflects these facets of my current repertoire,’ says Camilla Nylund. ‘I’m especially pleased to undertake this venture with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra under Hannu Lintu. We know each other well from our concerts together, and I was familiar with the acoustics of the concert hall there, so we were able to concentrate on making music. Because of that I enjoyed it very much.’ Camilla Nylund makes it clear, however, that German roles, although important, are only one part of her wide-ranging repertoire. ‘The opera world takes the easy way out – when you have been successful in particular roles, they only want you for those parts.’ During the next few years, she will therefore concentrate more on the Italian side of her repertoire and demonstrate ‘that we Finns can also sing with warmth and passion, with completely different colours.’ A new relationship is currently developing with the Netherlands Opera, where Camilla Nylund will sing Chrysothemis in Elektra and Elisabetta in Don Carlos . ‘More Puccini would also be good. After my first Mimi I realised that it suits my voice perfectly.’ Camilla Nylund has sung at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and the Teatro Carlo Fenice in Genoa. She was acclaimed at the Bavarian State Opera, the Finnish National Opera, the Flanders Opera in Antwerp and Ghent, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Cologne Opera, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Royal 5 Danish Opera in Copenhagen. Her debut at the Zurich Opera was greeted with tremendous applause, as evidenced by a DVD of Fidelio with Jonas Kaufmann, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. In summer 2008 she debuted as Rusalka with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst at the Salzburg Festival. She will repeat the popular role of Dvo rˇák’s water nymph in this production, directed by Jossi Wieler, in London and other cities and will soon return to the USA for Lohengrin in San Francisco. Camilla Nylund does not want to be typecast. In addition to her German Romantic repertoire and the great Mozart roles, she has also sung operettas and tries to appear regularly in concerts. She has performed with leading orchestras and collaborated with such conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Adam Fischer, Gary Bertini, Leif Segerstam, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Helmuth Rilling, Nicholas McGegan, Roger Norrington, Osmo Vänskä, Philippe Herreweghe, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. ‘There is too little time for lieder recitals at the moment,’ she says with regret, although she has recorded several programmes of songs on CD. Camilla Nylund has sung smaller Wagner roles, among them Gutrune ( Götterdämmerung ) and Freia (Das Rheingold ), and has appeared in Die Meistersinger as Eva, who is given rather short shrift when it comes to solos. On this CD she is heard in Elsa’s lyrical, anxious cavatina from the first act of Lohengrin , in which she dreams of an unknown knight sent to rescue her from her plight. Like a vocal calling card from Bayreuth, it is followed by Elisabeth’s two solos from Tannhäuser – the youthful, jubilant greeting to the ‘dear’ hall of the Wartburg and her melancholy prayers from the third act, with their long legato lines. The CD includes Sieglinde’s narrative from the first act of Die Walküre , which Camilla Nylund has not sung on the stage yet, and Isolde’s ‘Liebestod’ (Transfiguration) as a ‘promise of something that may come in the distant future’. ‘I would have liked to present even more of my Strauss roles,’ says Camilla Nylund, particularly the Countess in Capriccio and the Marschallin, but then the Wagner half would have been neglected. She has concentrated on four operas, three of which were premiered in Dresden. She sings one of her most familiar roles, that of Arabella, the moody daughter of a Viennese family which has seen 6 better days and now intends to marry her off to Mandryka, a stranger from the Croatian forest. Arabella knows nothing about this yet as she reflects on another suitor in the finale of the first act. Daphne’s treacherously high tessitura is displayed in the contemplatively beautiful opening scene from the story of the fisherman’s daughter who is transformed into a laurel tree after being pursued by Apollo. Ariadne’s lengthy monologue, in which she longs for the realm of the dead on her desert island, where she has been abandoned by Theseus, is also an exquisite jewel of the repertoire for every Strauss soprano, as is Salome’s closing monologue. ‘Currently my favourite role,’ Camilla Nylund admits without hesitation, ‘in which I can show everything.’ At the moment there is hardly any other singer who can embody the youthfulness, strength, vulnerability, and determination of the precocious Judean Princess as perfectly as she does. Manuel Brug (Translation: Phyllis Anderson) kandinavische Sänger im deutschen Repertoire sind nicht nur eine vokale Bereicherung, sie haben zudem eine lange Tradition. Egal ob Dänen, Schweden, Norweger oder Sänger aus SFinnland, das bei nur etwas über fünf Millionen Einwohnern eine erstaunliche Anzahl von Weltklassevokalisten hervorgebracht hat, die Stimmen aus dem hohen Norden exzellieren in Mozarts Singspielen ebenso wie den lyrischen und schweren Partien Wagners und Strauss’. Skandinavier waren auf der ganzen Welt stolze Besitzer dieses Repertoires, und immer wieder wachsen neue, mächtige, aber auch schlanke Stimmen nach. Ist es ihre Durchschlagskraft, sind es die leichter gemeisterten harten deutschen Konsonanten, der gefestigte Glanz in der Höhe, der oft auf einem soliden Fundament der Mittelage ruht, ist es die Belastungsfähigkeit? Oder ist es einfach auch nur die gute Ausbildung? Auch Camilla Nylund kann diese Beziehung nicht wirklich erklären, nur konstatieren, dass sie besteht. Dabei wäre die schlanke Blondine dafür prädestiniert. Geboren in Vaasa, entstammt Camilla Nylund der schwedischsprachigen Minderheit in Finnland.