Now that the Bel Canto revival has been definitively underway for a while, it seems as if we have finally caught up with Handel, too. Gone, suddenly and at last, is that dour atmosphere of respectful, academic correctness that plagued so many well-intentioned Handelian performances. Nowadays musicians and the public alike perceive Handel’s music as genuinely expressive and moving. We now have the singers — lots of them — who can do full justice to the seething drama and heartrending pathos it contains. Several of the best of these singers turn up in a stupendously effective recording of Handel’s Alcina (Erato 8573-80233-2) with Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie. Recorded live at the Paris Opera during a highly-acclaimed run of performances last June, this set both makes sense of the opera’s fantastic, magic-driven story and demonstrates once and for all the expressive power of the ornamented da capo aria.
Will Crutchfield’s concept, put forth in program notes for the Washington Opera, that the structure of Handel’s opera seria is akin to a series of song cycles running concurrently — one cycle for each character, expressing his or her changing emotional development — is particularly apt and helpful in understanding these works. Alcina is basically a string of da capo arias; there are no duets, very few choruses, and only one ensemble, a brief trio near the end. Obviously, the burden of expressiveness falls upon these individual arias and the artists who sing them. The secret is in ornamenting the da capo, using the repeat with its variations to intensify and fully develop the emotional state set forth in the beginning. With help from conductor William Christie, each of the singers in this excellent cast has become a master of this art. Although Christie has supervised and written many of the variants, the impression is one of total expressive spontaneity. Each singer appears to be improvising variations on the stated theme, working within the music’s written chords and rhythms as a jazz singer in our time would do with a Cole Porter song. Never in my experience has ornamentation so effectively carried forward the feeling, the beauty, the sense, and the drama of an operatic work. Each singer states his or her theme as written. Then, with variations tailored to exploit each individual’s vocal strengths and areas of special glory and tonal beauty, the singer re-explores the music, developing its maximum emotional intensity.
In the title role, Renée Fleming is a revelation. Her gorgeous singing demonstrates again and again the persuasive, heartbreaking power of pure song, sustained on an unfailing legato line. Susan Graham, as Ruggiero, does the same thing with her creamy, slightly woody and super-smooth voice. If parts of the role seem to sit a bit low in her voice (and could this impression be due, in part, to the lowered pitch of the period instruments with A at 415?), she remedies this in the da capos by heading straight for her upper middle voice where she can thrill your soul with that radiant glow. Kathleen Kuhlmann’s Bradamante exploits the Horne-like authority her firm tones command, and the piping, lighter voice of Natalie Dessay, as Morgana, works in effective contrast with the weightier voices around her.
Buy this one for the sheer beauty of the music and singing, and for the object lessons in style and embellishment.
Convincing bel canto performances are, happily, not rare today. Many singers, male and female, are thoroughly trained in performing this music for its expressive value and not just for the “look-what-I-can-do” virtuosity. One of the most convincing – and sensuously beautiful – bel canto recordings of the year is a new edition of Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi (Teldec 3984-21472-2) featuring Jennifer Larmore and Hei-Kyung Hong as the star-crossed lovers. Paul Groves, as Tebaldo, completely captures the Romantic sensibility; his effortless, accomplished use of the mixed voice facilitates an uncommonly fluid musical line. Robert Lloyd, Lorenzo, and Raymond Aceto, Capellio, luxuriate in their rich, lower voices and smooth, authoritative delivery, but the show, rightly, belongs to the tragic pair.
Romeo represents Jennifer Larmore’s best work on records to date. As usual, her plangent voice exhibits a firm, beautiful tone and a wonderfully consistent, even scale, freely ringing at the top and bottom with flashing colors aplenty in the middle. Added to this is a greater sensitivity to emotional, and musical, nuance and a dramatic bite that is specific and not just a by-product of her famous and admirable vocal strength and power. It is extremely gratifying to hear an already accomplished artist growing more and more confident in her mastery of the art.
As those who have been hearing her in the theatre know, Hei-Kyung Hong, the Giulietta, has been maturing into a first-rate artist, one of the finest sopranos before the public today. Record listeners may not have noticed this because, until now, this under-recorded singer has not been effectively captured on discs. Her slender, focused projection (rather like Nellie Melba’s in its clarity and concentration) which carries so powerfully in the acoustic space of a theatre, has sounded smaller and less impressive on recordings. But Teldec’s engineers got it right this time. Not for Hong the breathy declamation too popular today but instead a poised, always moving vocal line sculpted from human fire and marble. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus are exemplary, and the whole enterprise is tied together expertly by conductor David Runnicles who builds the performance to a moving density of intense emotion by the final scene.
The classical singer seeking to understand how to use the operatically trained voice in pop and show music could take a lesson from the example of Audra McDonald on her new album How Glory Goes (Nonesuch 79580-2). Without sacrificing her tonal beauty, she puts a conversational spin on a number of theatre songs, old and new. Lyrics never disappear into pure vocalese and the balance of chest and head voice is well managed. What a pleasure to hear popular songs sung with a properly placed and developed voice instead of hearing the chest voice pushed up into the ubiquitous “belt” which trades the bloom and beauty of the soprano top for the anguished, Streisand-like “geshrai.” This is not to say that she makes the familiar standards (“Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home,” “The Man That Got Away”) her own. She doesn’t, and that’s the danger of addressing material that has been famously, definitively delivered by others. But some of the less familiar songs (“When Did I Fall In Love?” and a really moving “I Won’t Mind”) come off very well, indeed. Not even her most tender delivery, however, can justify her continuing faith in some of the tedious, didactic songs that pass for today’s new theatre music.
