Live Offerings - Saturday, July 18, 2009 - Part I

Just getting under way or about to start:

• Bayern 4, MDR Figaro, NDR Kultur & RBB Kulturradio - From the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, a May 26th performance of Handel's Admeto, with Tim Mead, Marie Arnet, Kirsten Blaise, Andrew Radley, David Bates, William Berger and Wolf Matthias Friedrich, conducted by Nicholas McGegan.
• CBC Two - From Vlaamse Opera, a February 13th performance of Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa, with Nikolai Putilin, Mikhail Kit, Tatiana Pavlovska, Leandra Overmann, Viktor Lutsiuk, and Milcho Borovinov, conducted by Dmitri Jurowski.
• Deutschlandradio Kultur - Live from Kurhaus Bad Wildbad, Vaccaj's La sposa di Messina, with Jessica Pratt, Filippo Adami, Armando Ariostini, Jessica Pratt, Filippo Adami, Pietro Terranova, Wakako Ono and Maurizio Lo Piccolo, conducted by Antonio Fogliani.
• DR P2 - From Beaune, a july 4th performance of Handel's Ariodante, with Karina Gauvin, Daniel Taaylor, Yaël Azzaretti, Andrew Kennedy and Sergio Foresti, conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli.
• Espace 2 - From London, Proms 2, Haydn's Creation, with Sophie Bevan, Mark Padmore, Neal Davies and Peter Harvey, conducted by Paul McCreesh.
• Espace Musique - From Montpellier, Betin's La Esmeralda, with Maya Boog, Manuel Nunez Camelino, Francesco Ellero d'Artegna, Frédéric Antoun, Yves Saelens, Eugénie Danglade, Éric Huchet, Evgeny Alexeiev, Marc Mazuir, Marie-France Gascard, Sherri Sassoon-Deshler, Alexandra Dauphin-Heiser and Gundars Dzilums, conducted by Lawrence Foster.
• KBYU - From Utah Opera, a 2008 performance of Puccini's Manon Lescaut, with Irina Rindzuner, Marcos Aguiar, Alvaro Rodriguez and Bojan Knezevic, conducted by Barbara Day Turner.
• Radio Clasica de Espana - From Opéra Royal de Wallonie, an April 30th performance of Auber's Fra Diavolo, with K. Tarver, S. Jo, D. Lamprecht, M. Molomo, A. Figueroa, V. Pavesi, T. Dolié and T. Morris, conducted by J. C. Malgoire.
• RTP Antena 2 - From Teatro Rococó de Schwetzingen, an April 25, 2008 performance of Steffani's Niobe, with Maria Bengtsson, Ana Maria Labin, Delphine Galou, Peter Kennel, Pascal Bertin, Jacek Laszckowski, Lothar Odinius, Tobias Scharfenberger and Matjaz Robavs, conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock.
• WETA - From Washington National Opera, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, with Samuel Ramey and Denyce Grasves, conducted by Giovanni Reggioli.
• WFMT Opera Series (on numerous stations) - From Los Angeles Opera, Wagner's Die Walkure, with Plácido Domingo, Anja Kampe, Eric Halfvarson, Vitalij Kowaljow, Linda Watson, Michelle DeYoung, Ellie Dehn, Susan Foster, Erica Brookhyser, Ronnita Miller, Melissa Citro, Buffy Baggott, Jane Gilbert and Margaret Thompson, conducted by James Conlon.
• XLNC1 - From Los Angeles Opera, another chance to hear Wagner's Das Rheingold, with Stacey Tappan, Lauren McNeese, Beth Clayton, Gordon Hawkins, Michelle DeYoung, Vitalij Kowaljow, Ellie Dehn, Morris Robinson, Eric Halfvarson, Beau Gibson, Wayne Tigges, Arnold Bezuyen, Graham Clark and Jill Grove, conducted by James Conlon.

More to come...stay tuned.

Heavenly Harps

We were unable to post to this blog for about ten days, so now we make up for some of the lost time with a couple of reviews from our friend, Sam Shirakawa:

HEAVENLY HARPS

CONCERT:
MARIKO ANRAKU, Metropolitan Opera
JESSICA ZHOU, New York City Opera
NANCY ALLEN, New York Philharmonic
REBECCA RINGLE, mezzo-soprano
WEILL HALL 28 January 2009

Harps may sound heavenly, but they're hellish to play. I should know, because I'm a recovering harpist. You have to tune constantly, a pedal slip can instantly turn Mozart into Mayhem, strings can break with no warning. These are just a few of the angelic thoughts swirling through a harpist's mind while performing.

All that plus a challenging group of works must certainly have been on the minds of the principal harpists from the Big Apple's three most prestigious musical institutions, as they presented a concert Wednesday evening at Weill Hall. But you'd have never guessed it, as Mariko Anraku of the Met, Jessica Zhou from the City Opera, and the Philharmonic's Nancy Allen sallied elegantly through a delightful assortment of uncommon music for two and three harps, as well as a familiar work featuring mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle.

In fact, it was Ringle's participation in Manuel De Falla's Siete canciones populares españolas in a transcription by legendary harpist Carlos Salzedo that added extra spice to an unusual musicale. Ms Ringle is currently making her way through the operatic circuits, notably as a Valkyrie, but her true calling may be as a recitalist. She has an unusual claret timbre that retains its erotic resin from bottom to top. Blessed with a commanding stage presence, she communicated the full range of moods in the seven songs.

The preponderance of the heavy lifting throughout the evening was shared by Mss. Anraku and Zhou, starting with Cesar Franck's Prelude, Fugue and Variations in an arrangement by Dewey Owen, a Sonatine for Two Harps by Jean-Michel Damas, and a delightful self-arranged rendition of Ravel's Mere L'Oye. Nancy Allen joined them at the end of the concert for two substantial works by Francis Poulenc -- Fresco, Bela Bartok -- Hungarian Peasant Dances, and an encore -- Seguedilla by Isaac Albeniz.

The bitter-sweet take-away from this concert is how badly composers, especially great composers, have neglected the harp, thereby denying demonstrably virtuoso artists such as Anraku, Zhou and Allen opportunities to purvey their artistry to a broader public. Mozart hated the harp, Richard Strauss liked the instrument but never mastered writing for it, Salzedo tried in vain to persuade Stravinsky to compose at least one major work for harp, and he was similarly rebuffed by other composers. So harpists must rely on transcriptions or compose their own music.

A pity because the harp has a wealth of tonal possibilities that has yet to be fully explored by a major composer. And that confines wonderful harpists like Anraku, Zhou and Allen to the shallows of a still-uncharted musical sea.

©Sam H. Shirakawa 2009