Inaugural Edition, no. 3: While I toil away at this week's Inaugural-themed post, let's hear the end of The Magic Flute in our five performances -- plus a couple of "new" ones

There doesn't look to be much sense of danger from this, er, highly decorative band of conspirators: John Easterlin as Monostatos, Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, and Deborah Nansteel, Sarah Mesko, and Jacqueline Echols as the Second, Third, and First Ladies, as designed by Jun Kaneko in a joint production by five American opera companies, seen here at Washington National Opera in 2014. (Photo by Scott Suchman)

A rocky landscape. Night. The dark-spirited MONOSTATOS has entered stealthily with the QUEEN OF THE NIGHT, accompanied by her THREE LADIES carrying torches. There is thunder, and the sound of water.

MONOSTATOS: But hush, I hear a terrible rushing
like rolling thunder and a waterfall.
THE QUEEN and THE LADIES: Yes, fearful is this rushing,
like the distant echo of thunder!
MONOSTATOS: Now they are in the hall of the temple.
ALL [variously]: There we will fall upon them,
exterminate the pious ones from the earth
with glowing fire and mighty sword.
THE THREE LADIES and MONOSTATOS:
To you, great Queen of the Night,
let our revenge be brought as a sacrifice.
[There is loud thunder and lightning, followed by streaming holiness.]
THE QUEEN, THE THREE LADIES, and MONOSTATOS:
Shattered, destroyed is our might!
We are all plunged into eternal night!
[They sink into the ground.]

Change of scene (without curtain): The Temple of the Sun. SARASTRO stands elevated on an altar, TAMINO and PAMINA in front of him, both in priestly clothing. Beside them the priests of Egypt on both sides. THE THREE BOYS hold flowers.

SARASTRO: The rays of the sun drive away the night,
destroy the dissemblers' ill-gotten might.
CHORUS: Hail to you initiates!
You penetrate the night.
Thanks, thanks, thanks be to you, Osiris!
Thanks brought to you, Osiris!
[Allegro]
Strength conquers and crowns as reward
Beauty and Wisdom with an eternal crown!

Martti Talvela (bs), Sarastro; with Gerhard Stolze (t), Monostatos; Cristina Deutekom (s), Queen of the Night; Hanneke van Bork (s), Yvonne Minton (ms), and Hetty Plümacher (c), Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1969

Samuel Ramey (bs), Sarastro; with Aldo Baldin (t), Monostatos; Cheryl Studer (s), Queen of the Night; Yvonne Kenny (s), Iris Vermillion (ms), and Anne Collins (c), Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night; Ambrosian Opera Chorus, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded July 1989

Kurt Moll (bs), Sarastro; with Robert Tear (t), Monostatos; Luciana Serra (s), Queen of the Night; Marie McLaughlin (s), Ann Murray (ms), and Hanna Schwarz (ms), Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night; Leipzig Radio Chorus, Staatskapelle Dresden, Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1984

Franz Crass (bs), Sarastro; with Friedrich Lenz (t), Monostatos; Roberta Peters (s), Queen of the Night; Hildegard Hillebrecht (s), Cvetka Ahlin (ms), and Sieglinde Wagner (ms), Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night; RIAS Chamber Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Matti Salminen (bs), Sarastro; with Peter Keller (t), Monostatos; Edita Gruberová (s), Queen of the Night; Pamela Coburn (s), Delores Ziegler (ms), and Marjana Lipovšek (c), Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night; Chorus and Orchestra of the Zürich Opera House, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond. Teldec, recorded November 1987

by Ken

When last we met ("Post tease: Sarastro sings a mouthful when he sings, 'The sun's rays drive away the night'"), I was presenting the first of my three musical expressions of feelings I felt on Inauguration Day, namely the tiny block of two lines we had heard five notable Sarastros sing this tiny bit of the dénouement of The Magic Flute now heard buried in the above clips from the same five recordings, which we're hearing now in their proper context: the final minutes of Mozart's Magic Flute.

Our starting point last time comes a little after the one-minute mark.)

SARASTRO: The rays of the sun drive away the night,
destroy the dissemblers' ill-gotten might.

Martti Talvela (bs), Sarastro; Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1969

Samuel Ramey (bs), Sarastro; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded July 1989

Franz Crass (bs), Sarastro; Berlin Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Matti Salminen (bs), Sarastro; Zürich Opera House Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond. Teldec, recorded November 1987


WAIT, ISN'T THERE ONE MISSING?
SHOULDN'T THERE BE FIVE CLIPS?

Inaugural Edition, no. 2: Post tease: Sarastro sings a mouthful when he sings, "The rays of the sun drive away the night"

UPDATED WITH AN ALARMING QUANTITY OF POST-POSTING
THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES WE HEAR HERE

SARASTRO: The rays of the sun drive away the night,
destroy the dissemblers' ill-gotten might.

Martti Talvela (bs), Sarastro; Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1969

Samuel Ramey (bs), Sarastro; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded July 1989

Kurt Moll (bs), Sarastro; Staatskapelle Dresden, Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1984
Franz Crass (bs), Sarastro; Berlin Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Matti Salminen (bs), Sarastro; Zürich Opera House Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond. Teldec, recorded November 1987

by Ken

As I mentioned in Wednesday's Sunday Classics "Inaugural Edition," I had very powerfully in mind some musical thoughts beyond the two noble marches we listened to, and I mentioned in particular moments from The Magic Flute and Pelléas et Mélisande. Add to that list Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, and you've got today's post laid out.


POST-POSTING THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES
[NOTE (for those who saw my earlier note): The audio clips have now been resequenced to match (I think!) the order of discussion below.]

Ohmygosh, it's turned into Garrulous Old Moneygrubbers' Week here at Sunday Classics --or has it?

NOTE: If the audio clips don't all load, try refreshing the post -- more than once if necessary. They're all ready and waiting.

His chance encounter-at-sea with the mysterious -- and rich as all get-out -- Dutchman (Darren Jeffery) gives Daland (Steven Gallop) ideas about his marriageable daughter's future, in Melbourne's 2019 Flying Dutchman.


CAUTIONARY NOTE ABOUT THIS SET OF AUDIO CLIPS: They're all, er, special, in a particular way, and are here for a reason. (Okay, okay: We might call these "Garrulous Old Moneygrubbers' versions.") If your ears and brain are screaming, "Yuck, I can't stand it!," farther down we've got a heap of clips, of both selections, that are special in a way different way. -- Ed.

BEETHOVEN: Fidelio: Act I, Rocco, "Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben" ("If you don't have money too")

[FOR ENGLISH TEXT, SCROLL DOWN IN POST]


Kurt Böhme (bs), Rocco; Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond. Decca, recorded March 1964

Herbert Alsen (bs), Rocco; Vienna Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 3, 1948

WAGNER: The Flying Dutchman: Act II, Daland, "Mein Kind, du siehst mich" ("My child, you see me") . . . "Mögst du, mein Kind" ("Might you, my child")

[FOR ENGLISH TEXT, SCROLL DOWN IN POST]


["Mögst du, mein Kind" at 1:43] Josef Greindl (bs), Daland; Annelies Kupper (s), Senta; RIAS Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded 1952

["Mögst du, mein Kind" at 1:45] Josef Greindl (bs), Daland; Anja Silja (s), Senta; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. Philips, recorded live, August 1961

by Ken

We've got so many balls hanging precariously in the air that I was really hoping we snatch and ground one or two this week. Instead we're tossing up another.

The obvious follow-up to the "post-taste" I offered earlier today (or maybe it was yesterday -- you know, one of those days in there), which included performances of Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus Overture, would have been something I've had in mind for several weeks, for some point in the future: a look into the mystery of the master's overture-making skills, as reflected in the four specimens he created over that nine-year period for Fidelio, which include two gems and -- yes, I'm going to use the word -- two duds.

First page of the Fidelio Overture

The mystery becomes a little less mysterious when we factor in that, as I pointed out in the post-taste, while by 1805 the 35-year-old Beethoven had already have produced a large body of music of a high level of mastery in a wide variety of genres, as an overture-writer he was still a novice, whereas by 2014, when he sealed the deal with the fourth and final overture for the opera, the one we know as the Fidelio Overture, he was one of music's all-time master overturists. What may be most amazing is that in his second attempt at an operatic overture, as early as 1806, he gave us what may not be a useful operatic curtain-raiser but nevertheless is one of the great masterpieces of music. And then he produced a real dud. Maybe it just goes to show that by and large "easy" wasn't in Beethoven's working vocabulary.

Again, though, this was a subject for the future -- no way it was going to be doable on the spot, even if I curtailed the plan I'd roughed out, which would have included hearing all of the canonical Beethoven overtures.

Similarly, I didn't see any way of jumping from where we are to the lesson of Fidelio.


WHAT WE'RE DOING, THOUGH, ISN'T UNRELATED

Here's a tease, or maybe a tiny bit more than a tease, of a sort-of-post that should be coming up soon

Here's a catchy old tune:

by Ken

The blog horror I reported last week, the imposition of a radical and near-catastrophic new interface by Google's Blogger bloghost, has taken an enormous toll, requiring limitless reserves of energy and determination to accomplish basic things that used to be fairly routine, making it that much more difficult to try to conceive a workable blogpost. I've got something that's not much of a blogpost but does advance us a little in some of our current inquiries, which have taken us from Mozart's Don Giovanni to Beethoven's Fidelio and onward to the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, but I still haven't been able to get even that stopgap thing posted. Monday, I hope?

Meanwhile, let me make good at least a little on the tease above.

To put it another way:

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Berlin Philharmonic, Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded Dec. 1957-Apr. 1958

Franz Crass, bass; Vienna Singverein der Gesellschaft der Freunde, Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, June 6, 1960

Watch for further developments.

#

Still on the trail of our two classic Operatic Bad Days, we pause to sniff an elder tree

Friedrich Schorr as Hans Sachs

We're early in Act II of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The scene is a street with houses on the left and right, separated by a narrow alley that winds toward the back of the stage. The right-hand house, grand in style, is the goldsmith and mastersinger VEIT POGNER's; the left-hand house, simple in style, is the cobbler and mastersinger HANS SACHS's. In front of POGNER's house there is a lime tree; in front of SACHS's an elder. -- As the act began, not long before, it is a pleasant summer evening, and in the course of the action of the act night falls.

At this point SACHS is in his workshop, unable to get out of his head the audition "mastersong" presented to him and his fellow mastersingers this morning, breaking all the rules, and yet, and yet -- Now, having just said good night to his apprentice, DAVID, he arranges his work, sits on his stool at the door, and then, laying his tools down again, leans back, resting his arms on the closed lower half of the door.

HANS SACHS: How sweet the elder smells,
so mild, so strong and full! --
It relaxes my limbs gently,
wants me to say something. --
What is the good of anything I can say to you?
I'm but a poor, simple man.
If work is not to my taste,
you might, friend, rather release me;
I would do better to stretch leather
and give up all poetry. --
[He tries to work, with much noise, but leaves off, leans back once more, and reflects.]
And yet, it just won't go. --
I feel it, and cannot understand it --
I cannot hold on to it, nor yet forget it;
and if I grasp it wholly, I cannot measure it! --
But then, how should I grasp
what seemed to me immeasurable?
No rule seemed to fit it,
and yet there was no fault in it. --
It sounded so old, and yet was so new,
like birdsong in sweet May: --
whosoever hears it
and, carried away by madness,
were to sing it after the bird,
it would bring him derision and disgrace! --
Spring's command,
sweet necessity
placed it in his breast;
then he sang as he had to;
and as he had to, so he could --
I noticed that particularly.
The bird that sang today
had a finely formed beak;
if he made the Masters uneasy,
he certainly well pleased Hans Sachs!

-- English translation (mostly) by Peter Branscombe

Friedrich Schorr (b), Hans Sachs; London Symphony Orchestra, Leo Blech, cond. EMI, recorded May 10, 1930

Franz Crass (bs), Hans Sachs; Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Kurt Eichhorn, cond. EMI, recorded c1971

by Ken

Two weeks ago I set out to explore some of what I'm calling Operatic Bad Days ("On an operatic bad day you can sometimes see forever -- but oftentimes not"), offering as a sort of model, though a far from ideal one, Sir John Falstaff's massively self-pitying monologue at the start of Act III of Verdi and Boito's Falstaff, after dragging himself out of the Thames, decrying our "Thieving world! Villainous world! Wicked world!" (Eventually, believe it or not, this is going to tie up with our still-ongoing discussion of the underlying link between Schubert's "An die Musik," Richard Strauss's "Zueignung," and the Prologue to Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos.)

Then last week I revealed ("Promissory note for one of our still-to-come Operatic Bad Days") that one of the OBDs I'm targeting takes place in a Wagner opera -- maybe Tannhäuser, maybe Tristan und Isolde, maybe Die Meistersinger, maybe Parsifal, or maybe even Lohengrin. In the process last week we heard a lot of music, and if you haven't taken it all in, it's still there.


I STILL FEEL BAD FOR NOT TALKING ABOUT LAST
WEEK'S PERFORMANCES, BUT I HAD MY REASONS

One of these "Parsifal" performances doesn't belong in the company of the others

WAGNER: Parsifal: Prelude and Good Friday Spell

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1957

by Ken

We first heard the Prelude and opening of Act I of Parsifal in a March 2010 post called "Wagner, master of musical motion, Part 2," in which I wrote: "Our subject this week, you'll recall, is "musical motion," how performers find -- or don't -- what makes a piece of music move forward from the inside, how they re-create it with real energy and purpose instead of just grinding out one damned note after another."

The Jochum studio recording of the frequent concert coupling of the Parsifal Prelude and "Good Friday Spell" (from Act III), by no means a speedy performance, seems to me a shining example of the "re-created with real energy and purpose" kind.


IN 2010, OUR PRINCIPAL WAGNER TESTING GROUND . . .

Karl Ridderbusch as the King in "Lohengrin" -- this is what's now called "shouting"???

ELSA has appeared in a very simple white garment and overwhelmed the assembled nobles with the purity and innocence of her bearing. Now KING HEINRICH tries to get, well, anything at all out of her regarding the disappearance of her little brother Gottfired, which she is accused of being responsible for.

KING HEINRICH: Are you she, Elsa of Brabant?
[ELSA nods her head affirmatively.]
Do you recognize me as your judge?
[ELSA turns her head toward the KING, looks him in the eye, and then affirms with a trust-filled gesture.]
Then I ask you further:
Is the charge known to you,
which has been brought so weightily against you?
[ELSA glances at TELRAMUND and ORTRUD, shudders, bows her head sadly, and affirms.]
What do you have to say against the charge?
[ELSA through a gesture: "Nothing!"]
So you acknowledge your guilt?
ELSA [staring sadly for a long time around her]: My poor brother!
ALL THE MEN: How wondrous! What strange behavior!
KING HEINRICH: Speak, Elsa, what do you have to confide to me?

by Ken

Can't somebody get that damned Ridderbusch fellow to stop ferchrissakes shouting? (This is a very tiny joke, which I'll explain in a moment.)

This two-minute-plus extract comes from what is still my favorite Lohengrin recording, the 1971 DG studio version conducted by Sunday Classics stalwart Rafael Kubelik. In it we hear Karl Ridderbusch in his matchless prime as King Heinrich and Gundula Janowitz singing Elsa's single line, one of the most haunting lines in opera, "Mein armer Bruder. (I had thought of doing a collage of maybe ten singers singing it, but do you have any idea how much time editing such a thing would have taken?) If there are two more beautiful, riveting minutes of music anywhere in the recorded annals, I don't know what they are.

Since we last dipped into Lohengrin, this past February in the "Remembering Eugen Jochum" posts that included excerpts from his 1954 Bayreuth performance, I've gotten hold of a CD edition of the Kubelik-DG recording, which I had only on LP and open-reel tape, and my admiration is if anything greater than ever. I think the Act I Prelude is an excellent example.

WAGNER: Lohengrin: Prelude to Act I

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded April 1971

We've heard some beautiful performances of the Lohengrin Prelude. In that February post, for example, we heard one by Sir Adrian Boult. But I'm not sure I've ever heard a fuller, more pulsing-with-life one than Kubelik's. And this is true of the Lohengrin performance as a whole. I'm not sure people generally appreciate just how difficult an opera this is to make musical and dramatic sense of, and Kubelik's performance has a riveting continuity I've never heard matched in a lifetime that has included a lot of Lohengrin performances. (Curiously, Kubelik's 1967 Bavarian Radio broadcast Meistersinger, which acquired a legend before anyone without archival access was able to hear it, and which to my ears turns out to be crashingly ordinary, is praised to the skies by the online cognoscenti.)


IT WAS, IN FACT, A BIZARRE ONLINE REVIEW OF THIS
RECORDING THAT TRIGGERED THIS SERIES OF POSTS

Preview: What a difference a top-quality bass makes as King Heinrich in "Lohengrin"

WAGNER: Lohengrin: Act I: Royal Herald, "Gott richtet euch nach Recht und Fug" ("God will pass rightful judgment on you") . . . King Heinrich, "Mein Herr und Gott" ("My Lord and God")

ROYAL HERALD [to LOHENGRIN and TELRAMUND]:
God will pass rightful judgment,
so trust in Him, not in your own strength!
LOHENGRIN and TELRAMUND [standing opposite each other, outside the circle]:
God will pass rightful judgment on me,
so I shall trust in Him, not in my own strength!
KING HEINRICH [proceeding to the middle with great ceremony]: My Lord and God, I call upon you
[Everyone bares their head in deepest reverence]
to be present at this fight!
Proclaim through the sword's victory a verdict
that clearly shows what is deceit and what is truth!
May he who is innocent fight with the arm of a hero,
and may he who is false be sapped of strength!
So help us God in this hour,
for our wisdom is but folly!

PERFORMANCE A

PERFORMANCE B

PERFORMANCE C


by Ken

What we have here are three performances of the King's great prayer near the end of Act I of Lohengrin -- performances widely spaced in time, by basses who were all highly regarded in their times, and also widely spaced in quality, ranging from the near-sublime to the near-ridiculous. We'll hear them again in a moment, with proper identifications.

But first I should explain that when we first dipped into Wagner's Flying Dutchman last month ("Preview: Father's Day special -- meet the sea captain Daland" and "Father's Day special -- Wagner's Daland usually knows better than to trust in the wind"), the idea was to focus on the outstanding German bass Karl Ridderbusch in his glorious prime, in two great performances, as Daland in Dutchman and as the King in Lohengrin. Then I got sidetracked into "A little more of The Flying Dutchman -- we hear from the sailors" (preview) and "In The Flying Dutchman Wagner shows there's more than one way to get from Act I to Act II and from Act II to Act III." Well, around here that's always a risk.

This week I want to proceed to Ridderbusch's King Heinrich der Vogler, and we'll get there Sunday, but first I wanted to hit the King's two vocal high points.. We started with the King's stupendous invocation near the end of Act I, initiating the trial by combat between the unknown knight who has fallen from the heavens to defend Elsa of Brabant, accused of causing the disappearance of her little brother, Gottfried, and her accuser, her and Gottfried's guardian, the Brabantine noble Friedrich of Telramund.

NOW LET'S HEAR AND IDENTIFY OUR THREE PERFORMANCES