CHAN 3127 Wide Book Cover 7/11/05 3:50 PM Page 1 GREAT OPERATIC ARIAS GREAT OPERATIC ARIAS CHAN 3127 CHANDOS O PERA IN ENGLISH soprano Option 1 PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA conducted by DAVID PARRY PETER MOORES FOUNDATION CHAN 3127 BOOK.qxd 12/9/06 4:32 pm Page 2 © Bill Cooper © Bill Great Operatic Arias with Christine Brewer On session: Christine Brewer 3 CHAN 3127 BOOK.qxd 12/9/06 4:32 pm Page 4 Time Page Time Page Richard Wagner (1813–1883) Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) from Tannhäuser from The Golden Legend Elizabeth’s Greeting (Dich teure Halle) Elsie’s Song 1 ‘Great hall of song’ 4:55 [p. 46] 5 ‘The night is calm and cloudless’ 5:09 [p. 49] with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Carl Maria von Weber from Don Giovanni Donna Anna’s Vengeance Aria (Or sai chi l’onore) from Euryanthe 2 ‘Don Ottavio, I’m dying’ – Recitative and Duet of Euryanthe and Eglantine (Unter ist mein Stern ‘He threatened my honour’ 6:14 [p. 46] gegangen) with Barry Banks tenor 6 ‘Ah, what have I done?’ – ‘Fading is the star that guides me’ 3:59 [p. 49] Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787) with Janice Watson soprano from Alceste Emmerich Kálmán (1882–1953) Alceste’s Aria (Divinités du Styx) 3 ‘Almighty gods of death!’ 4:41 [p. 47] from Countess Maritza Ensemble and Maritza’s Entrance (Where is love’s kingdom?) Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826) 7 ‘Gypsy airs and joyful phrases’ – ‘Where is love’s kingdom?’ 6:54 [p. 50] from Oberon with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir Reiza’s recitative and aria (Ozean! Du Ungeheuer) 4 ‘Ocean! Thou mighty monster’ – Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) ‘Still I see thy billows flashing’ 8:49 [p. 48] from Carousel 8 ‘You’ll never walk alone’ 4:01 [p. 51] with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir 4 5 CHAN 3127 BOOK.qxd 12/9/06 4:32 pm Page 6 The gleaming, expressive voice of the Time Page American soprano Christine Brewer was Franz Lehár (1870–1948) such a revelation when she recorded Christie’s, New York New Christie’s, from Giuditta Fidelio for Opera in English that we Giuditta’s Aria (Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiss) immediately scheduled this recital disc. 9 ‘Why ever should it be’ 5:45 [p. 51] Here, she reveals the beautifully with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir considered balance of her lyric Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) and dramatic singing from Stabat Mater (Inflammatus) in songs of many 10 ‘Blessed virgin, may the flame of love’ 4:19 [p. 52] moods and from with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir many eras, from Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Wagner to Richard Concert Aria ‘Ah perfido!’, Op. 65 Rodgers, from 11 ‘Ah! Treachery and falsehood! – Weber to Lehár ‘Ah, my love, how can you leave me’ 13:16 [p. 53] and from Gluck Bob Merrill (1921–1998) to Sullivan. from Carnival Enjoy! Lili’s song (Mira – Can you imagine that?) 12 ‘I came on two buses and a train’ 4:26 [p. 53] TT 73:52 August 2005 Sir Peter Moores examining an archaic Chinese bronze from the collection at Compton Verney 7 6 CHAN 3127 BOOK.qxd 12/9/06 4:32 pm Page 8 which she sings the heroine to Petra Lang’s will all too often be pursued at the expense of Great Operatic Arias Brangaene and Christian Franz’s Tristan. one or all these virtues. Mozart insists on their Already she has been described in the preservation. For record collectors, a programme such as concert aria ‘Ah! perfido’ in her recorded American press as the singer who ‘should be He is represented here by the duet, this is rich in associations. Titles are connected repertoire. Nearer to modern times, we think the Isolde and Brünnhilde everywhere’. There recitative and aria from Don Giovanni with names, arias with singers, and a whole of the cleaving tones of Birgit Nilsson or the is of course a danger in that ‘everywhere’: as (track 2 ). Donna Anna is now the Mozartean network of sonorities is set ringing by richer ones of Jessye Norman in Elizabeth’s Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior found, when a role with which Christine Brewer is most invocation of ‘Ocean, thou mighty monster’ or Greeting. In fact a rare parade of vocal majesty singer has the monopoly of preference in closely associated, the role (for instance) of an Elizabeth’s ‘Hall of song’. These have been passes before the eyes and ears of your certain roles, those roles in turn tend to earlier success in Edinburgh, under Sir Charles traditionally the province of the most regal of collector’s imagination, and in its wake is monopolise the singer. The Wagner-specialist Mackerras in 1995. The disposition of the soprano voices. On records they go back in always the attendant hope of the line’s has to leave a way out. three women’s parts in Don Giovanni has come time to the earliest years of all and to names continuance into our own day and age. The present programme makes it clear that into question in recent years. It used to be retrieved from the nineteenth century. Anna Christine Brewer has an eminent place Christine Brewer has plenty going for her clear enough: Zerlina (now sometimes claimed Bahr-Mildenburg, the great dramatic soprano among the heroic sopranos of our time. outside Wagner. She has in fact a great deal for the mezzo) was always a light soprano, of the Vienna Opera in Mahler’s time, Exceptionally, her voice possesses the ideal more, for she is also an admired concert artist, even a soubrette, Donna Elvira a standard lyric recorded ‘Ocean, thou mighty monster’ in combination of power and firmness, radiance with (particularly) a large repertoire of role and Donna Anna the heavy. Such was the 1904. Lilli Lehmann, veteran of the first and breadth. She has also spirit to match. Schubert Lieder. In opera, among her notable casting of a famous revival at Covent Garden season at Bayreuth and principal Wagnerian A great warmth of feeling and sense of successes have been Britten’s Gloriana and under Bruno Walter in 1926: Elisabeth soprano at Covent Garden and the dramatic conviction are hers, and these extend Barber’s Vanessa. And it is always reassuring to Schumann sang Zerlina, Lotte Lehmann Metropolitan in the ‘Golden Age’ of the to the quieter, intimate expressions of emotion find, as here, that Mozart has played a large Elvira and Frida Leider Anna. In the event it 1890s, made a recording of Donna Anna’s as to the moments of grandeur generally part in a singer’s career. Brewer made both her was felt that Lehmann and Leider both had Vengeance aria and several other items heard regarded as marking the summit of the heroic New York and her London debuts as the such a powerful stage-presence that they here, which are titanic in spirit and often singer’s art. In terms of repertoire, that summit Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, and for seemed to cancel each other out. But it would mightily impressive in voice and technique is usually represented by the two great such a role it is essential that the singer should have been unthinkable for them to have despite her advanced age. Frida Leider, adored Wagnerian roles of Isolde and Brünnhilde. be in full possession of the singerly virtues of exchanged roles, just as it was the invariable by London audiences in the interwar years, A highlight of the 2005 Edinburgh Festival flexibility, pure tone, steady production and arrangement in those years for Lehmann to also shone in that aria, and Kirsten Flagstad, (still a few months ahead at the time of genuine legato. As we hardly need telling, the play Sieglinde to Leider’s Brünnhilde in her successor, was another who included writing) is confidently expected to be the cultivation of sheer volume and the repeated Die Walküre. Modern conductors and ‘Ocean, thou mighty monster’ and Beethoven’s concert performance of Tristan and Isolde in singing of roles most strenuously requiring it producers have been more inclined to ask, in 8 9 CHAN 3127 BOOK.qxd 12/9/06 4:32 pm Page 10 Don Giovanni at least, why this should be so. sign of volume as a cult in itself till well on in Alceste’s aria (track 3 ), usually known under Oberon (track 4 ), the scene from Euryanthe Surely Anna is the gentler, more sympathetic the nineteenth century. its French title, ‘Divinités du Styx’, is a good (track 6 ), and two interpolations from what character, Elvira the termagant? Even Mozart’s sopranos seem to have been example of the noble style, plain but forcible, might seem unlikely composers, Rossini and But no discussion of characters in opera gets remarkable for range and agility rather than suiting the voice of what we now recognise as Sullivan. The Rossini (track 10 ) bears several very far without reference to their music, and power, and of Teresa Saporiti, the first Anna, the heroic, dramatic soprano. And it is not far marks of the school of singing which these in this instance it is Donna Anna’s Vengeance it was reported that ‘her voice is somewhat from that to Beethoven and Weber. other composers, from Beethoven to Wagner, aria that settles the matter. The powerful small and she neglects expression in Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient was not most resolutely supersede: the decorative turns sweep of the phrases, the intensity of angry recitatives’. Some years after the premiere of Beethoven’s first Leonore (she was only one and trills, the encouragement to the singer to emotion (ennobled by restraint) and above all Don Giovanni she became prima buffa assoluta year old when the original version had its exhibit her technical skill as well as the sheer the effect of those climactic high ‘A’s call for a and specialised in roles such as Rosina in premiere in 1805).