We move on to No. 7 as we count our way through those "Top 10 [or 11] Orchestral Clarinet Solos" with (mostly) Stanley Drucker

STANLEY D. GOES TO THE OPERA --
AND HEREUPON HANGS OUR TALE
(with apologies for the crappy sound and crappier end-edit)


OR, TO HEAR IT IN CONTEXT --
(still in crappy sound, but at least without my unavoidably crappy edit)

Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall, live, April 1983
[Note the audience's response when they hear Stanley D. launch "The Solo."]

And the stars were shining
and the earth was perfumed,
the garden gate creaked,
and footsteps grazed the path.
She entered, all fragrance,
she fell into my arms.
O sweet kisses, o languid caresses,
while I, trembling,
unloosed the veils, revealing her beauty!
Gone forever that dream of love --
the hour has fled,
and I die despairing, and I die despairing!
Yet never before have I loved life, loved life so much!

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; with Stanley Drucker, clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. Encore performance from a Pavarotti-Mehta "Gala Concert," telecast live from Avery Fisher Hall, Apr. 4, 1983 (with post-performance announcements by Martin Bookspan)
[Note: Farther along we're going to hear Luciano P. in good studio sound.]

by Ken

We're continuing our countdown through Charlotte (NC) Symphony Orchestra clarinetist Allan Rosenfeld's list of his "Top 10 Orchestral Clarinet Solos," in the company (mostly) of the New York Philharmonic's 61-season clarinetist, Stanley Drucker (1929-2022) -- first, from age 19, as assistant principal, then for an amazing 49 seasons as principal clarinet.

Last week (in "An orchestra principal's most visible job is playing orchestral solos written for his/her instrument. He-e-re's Stanley D.!") we made it all the way down from No. 10 (the end of "Pines of the Janiculum" from Respighi's Pines of Rome) to No. 8 (the opening of the Andante of the Brahms Third Symphony) -- oh, right, passing through No. 9 (from the "Andante cantabile non troppo" section of Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini).

So here I was thinking that with two good pushes we could get through the whole list, even allowing ample excursion time to look in a larger way at the music represented, which, as I tried to explain, is one effect pondering Stanley D.'s enormous career has had on me. I mean, to have been that immersed in music -- mostly not of his own choosing -- all those decades while maintaining an insistence on bringing to each performance first-performance freshness: How awesome is that?


WOULDN'T YOU KNOW? RIGHT AWAY AT NO. 7 I GOT STUCK

I wonder how much these three singers -- whom we heard recently, and who not so long ago would have been instantly recognizable (or almost) -- are even known now

Let's call our first singer "Singer A" --

Singer A; National Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Gerhardt, arr. and cond. RCA, recorded in Walthamstow Town Hall, London, May 10-13, 1982

by Ken

As I sort-of-explained in a post-placeholder that was up briefly, untold numbers of posts-in-progress, and in particular intersecting (or overlapping) cycles of posts, have been piling up in various state of incompletion, or maybe incompletability. What I put up briefly -- for the usual reason, that since the sh*ttification wrought by the Googlefiends since their takeover of Blogger, I still haven't found any way of seeing and hearing all the working parts of a post work short of actually publishing the thing -- was essentially a fleeting bit of what now stands to be the next-up post-cycle, and yet even so that pair of more or less self-contained scenes from a well-known show, totaling just about 15 minutes' playing time, had consumed a troubling number of hours over a bunch of days. For once instead of bitching and moaning about the grueling prospect of tending to all the details large and small, oh-so-many of them involving seemingly endless picayune picky-work, I had summoned uncommon stores of patience to just do it all, and by the end both excerpts were "done up" just about properly, including even the fully inserted vocal texts.

And "the end" is all too literally the case, since an hour or so after that chunk was posted, complete with a covering note explaining that at this point, now that I had the opportunity to check out and test those post-portions, I really no longer had any need to have them in "published" state but nevertheless meant to leave them up for a while in case any readers happened by -- well, at that hour-plus mark I worked my way through to the painful decision that I really couldn't use them, that thanks in part to the unaccustomed fastidiousness of the work product, it strayed too dangerously into copyright-infringement territory. So crashing down that stuff came.

Oh well.

SO, WE PROCEED -- TOWARD SOME CONSIDERATION OF
THE THREE SINGERS YOU'RE HEARING (AGAIN) TODAY

So much for my fleeting sensation of having brought all those grueling labors to an at least somewhat satisfactory result, not to mention the fleeing sensation of having finally gotten something, if not actually posted, finally, then at least made available for perusal.

So, to work. Before proceeding to Singers B and C --

Let's hear SINGER A sing the whole "Battle Hymn of the Republic"

"When the thaw comes, the first sunshine is mine": Still more Freni

Freni as Micaëla in 1965 (photo by Bisazza)

BIZET: Carmen: Act III, Recitative (not by Bizet) and aria, Micaëla, "C'est ici des contrebandiers le refuge ordinaire" . . . "Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante"

A mountain pass. A wild rocky place. It is a dark night. The stage has been populated by smugglers and Gypsies including CARMEN and her gal-and-guy cronies and also the AWOL, hopelessly smitten DON JOSÉ. They've all filed out now, leaving JOSÉ behind, posted on a high rock to watch. Unseen by him, MICAËLA, accompanied by a guide, enters. The guide points out the smugglers' camp, then quickly withdraws.

Recitative (by Ernest Guiraud)
This is the smugglers' usual hideout.
He's here, I will see him,
and the duty his mother charged me with
I'll accomplish without trembling.
Aria
I say that nothing frightens me.
I say, alas, that I can take care of myself.
But I play the valiant woman in vain.
Deep in my heart I'm dying with terror!
Alone in this savage place,
all alone, I'm afraid,
but I'm wrong to be afraid.
You will give me courage,
you will protect me, Lord!

I'm going to see close up this woman
whose cursed wiles
have wound up making an outlaw
of the man I once loved!
She's dangerous, she's beautiful,
but I don't want to be afraid!
No, no, I don't want to be afraid!
I will speak boldly in her presence!
Ah! Lord, you will protect me!

Ah! I say that nothing frightens me, etc.
Protect me, o Lord!
Give me courage!

[in Italian] Munich Radio Orchestra, Ino Savini, cond. Eurodisc-Vanguard Cardinal, recorded 1959

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 27, 1966

by Ken

Thus far in our remembrance of Mirella Freni (1935-2020) -- first here, then here -- we've gotten as far as hearing her sprinkle abundant vocal magic as young Nannetta Ford impersonates the Queen of the Fairies in the final scene of Verdi's Falstaff, a role she learned on shorter notice than she thought she could when the call came from Covent Garden, where she wound up winning the heart of the young Carlo Maria Giulini with her debut in 1961 -- and attracting lots of other international attention, including that of Herbert von Karajan, who seems pretty quickly to have thought of her for a couple of other roles he needed to cast.

One was Micaëla in Carmen, which he was doing at Salzburg and (in November 1963) recording for RCA. This was a role Freni didn't have to learn, except perhaps in French (if we can really call what she's singing French); it was the first role she sang onstage, in her hometown of Modena, at the age of 20. (The 1959 Italian-language recording of Micaëla's aria we hear above comes from the same Eurodisc operatic recital from which we've heard her first recordings of Gianni Schicchi's darling daughter Lauretta's "O mio babbino caro," Suor Angelica's "Senza mamma," and Nannetta's "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio.") One thing we might say of Micaëla, though, as we might have said of Nannetta, is that while they're both roles that many up-and-coming singers have sung on their way to bigger opportunities, it's not often that either of these roles is itself a career-builder. For that to happen, the singer has to be something special.

Is there any question that Freni was something really special?


LET'S SAMPLE TWO OTHER ROLES, INCLUDING THE
OTHER ONE THAT KARAJAN HAD FRENI IN MIND FOR

Mirella Freni (1935-2020)

O my dear daddy,
I like him, he's handsome, handsome.
I want to go to Porta Rossa
to buy the ring!
And if I loved him in vain,
I would go to the Ponte Vecchio,
but to throw myself in the Arno!
I'm pining and am tormented!
O God! I'd want to die!
Daddy, mercy, mercy!
Daddy, mercy, mercy!

Munich Radio Orchestra, Ino Savino, cond. Eurodisc-Vanguard Cardinal, recorded 1959

by Ken

This one is personal. I was a couple of years into operatic consciousness when Mirella Freni burst onto the international scene, and it was hard not to be won over by such a lovely lyric soprano backed by such a warm, winning personality. The "O mio babbino caro" we've just heard dates even a few years farther back, from an operatic recital she recorded for Eurodisc in Munich in 1959, which Vanguard shrewdly licensed in the '60s and issued as the above-pictured Vanguard Cardinal LP, which I'm here to tell you I listened to a lot back then.


JUMPING AHEAD

The start of something: Here's the promised follow-up to the post spotlighting Till Eulenspiegel and the Symphonia domestica -- focusing now on the already-heard openings of six Strauss operas

Sure, literally speaking Guntram (with, we might note, a libretto by the composer, Wagner-style, something Strauss would attempt again only once more, still perhaps problematically but, I think, a lot more successfully, with the sort-of-autobiographical Intermezzo) was the start of something, but could anyone have guessed "of what"? (We can also note at the very top that Strauss's first opera was "Dedicated to my dear parents.")

by Ken

To recap, our subject is still Salome, Richard Strauss's third opera, focusing here on the powerful anecdotal evidence from these snatches of the operas that preceded and followed Salome of the startling transformation that took place, all at once, in Strauss's ability to make the operatic medium work for him. In the main portion of this week's post, "Strauss's operatic beginnings: We don't need an excuse to listen to Till Eulenspiegel -- but the Symphonia domestica, maybe so?" we heard these same operatic clips, in this same order, with no identification of either the operas or the performers. In this concluding portion of the post we have all those identifications available, as well as English texts for most of the sung portions of these excerpts.

As I'm sure you guessed, Operas X and Y were Strauss's pre-Salome operatic endeavors, the turgid late Romantic stinker Guntram (first performed in 1894) and its "satirical" successor, Feuersnot (first performed in 1901). Perhaps surprisingly, given how adept Strauss would become at devising operatic openings that plunge us directly into the action, he began his operatic career with a full-fledged overture. Oy, is it full-fledged; it just fledges on and on -- and on. (Note that it's not entirely free-standing, as we might expect an "overture" to be in one frequently proposed distinction between an "overture" and a "prelude," which not only tends to be shorter but normally flows directly into the opening scene. The Guntram whatever-you-want-to-call-it flows directly into the equally nondescript music of the opening scene.

[AFTERTHOUGHT: I have to say that rather unexpectedly the Guntram Overture has started to grow on me -- hey, this is not some no-talented musical hack we're dealing with. But it still seems to meander hopelessly, stretching this thin material many long, long minutes beyond the breaking point. -- Ken]

[X] R. STRAUSS: Guntram, Op. 25: Overture


BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Pritchard, cond. Gala, broadcast performance, 1981

Hungarian State Orchestra, Eve Queler, cond. CBS-Hungaroton, recorded 1984


MOVING ON TO "OPERA Y": FEUERSNOT

How many of the "World's Best Places for 2015" do you plan to hit this year?

Sunday Classics note: This post was prepared for Down With Tyranny, but because of the musical tie-in I thought I would share it here, though I'm not necessarily thrilled with the musical examples. Ezio Pinza and Tancredi Pesaro, both indisputably great basses, get off to a fluttery start in the Vespri siciliani recitative and aria, and in the chunk of the Ping-Pang-Pong trio from Turandot, while I love the RCA recording with Mario Sereni as Ping, I supplemented it at first with the first two CD Turandots I could lay hands on, then dumped one and added two more that I dubbed from LP, and I'm still far from happy -- the truth is that even on records the role of Ping in particular doesn't get sung all that well.

Pretoria Square, Palermo

Recitative, Giovanni da Procida
Palermo! O my country!
Country so regretted!
The exile greets thee after three years of absence!
On thy enchanted shores I had my birth.
I discharge my debt toward thee.
Here is liberty!
Aria, "E toi, Palerme!" ("E tu, Palermo!")
And thou, Palermo, o beauty that's outraged!
Thou, always dear to my enchanted eyes,
ah! raise thy face, bowed under servitude,
and become again the queen of cities!
Everywhere on foreign ground
I went seeking avengers for thee,
but, insensible to thy misery, each said:
"Rise up against your oppressors,
and you will be supported: Rise up!"
And I come -- there I am!
And thou, Palermo, etc.


Samuel Ramey (bs), Giovanni da Procida; Munich Radio Orchestra, Jacques Delacôte, cond. EMI, recorded April 1988

[in Italian, as "O patria! O cara patria" . . . "E tu, Palermo"] Nicolai Ghiaurov (bs), Giovanni da Procida; London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. Decca, recorded January 1969

[in Italian, compressed to fit one 78 side] Ezio Pinza (bs), Giovanni da Procida; orchestra, Rosario Bourdon, cond. Victor, recorded Feb., 17, 1927

[in Italian, compressed to fit one 78 side] Tancredi Pasero (bs), Giovanni da Procida; orchestra. Odeon, recorded 1936

by Ken

Okay, it's possible that I was motivated to share this feature from AARP, "World's Best Places for 2015," because two of the designated places have inspired such memorable musical effusions, starting with the one we've just heard, the emotional return of the exiled Sicilian patriot Giovanni da Procida to the Sicillian capital of Palermo, his hometown (No. 6 on the list) at the opening of Act II of Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes" (The Sicilian Vespers).

Sunday Classics goes on hiatus (continued)

Tenor Michel Sénéchal (born 1927 and apparently still with us), whom
we're going to hear sing, of all things, Mahler -- and something else

by Ken

As I wrote Friday night in connection with this hiatus Sunday Classics has chosen to go on, a happy surprise for me in beginning to tinker with the heap of hundreds and hundreds of posts that have by now accumulated was the discovery that by golly there really and truly is a heap of wonderful music buried in that heap. This at least slightly undercuts the feeling I generally have when one of these posts is sent out into the ether (beyond the feeling "Thank goodness that's done, or done-ish"), which is "What the [expletive deleted] was the point of that?"

Sharing a lot of music that I love was the basic point of the enterprise -- that and helping people approach it, especially (ideally) people who for whatever reason have been shy about listening. I try like the dickens not to try to tell people how they should listen, because my feeling is that the whole deal with listening is precisely each individual working out his/herself how to listen, and hear. The best I thought I could do was to provide some clues based on my own habits of listening -- that and perhaps providing a nudge and a maybe little courage, and a glimmering of some of the rewards that lie in store.

For the time being, as I also mentioned Friday night, I want to focus on getting that heap of stuff accessible in the form of a stand-alone blog (at sundayclassicswithken.blogspot.com), which I've only just begun doing. (At some point I reckon we'll add a button or some kind of link thingie here on DWT.) I won't bore you with the heap of difficulties involved in this project -- or the even more fierce, and tedious, difficulties involved in the parallel project of updating the index that would provide some sort of overall access to the material, which sputtered and stalled as of July 11, 2010. I myself have spent more time than I care to admit yahoo-ing for links to old posts. What's worse is that I keep finding indications that over these last four to five years there have been posts of which I have no ready recall at all.


NOW TO BUSINESS!

How Massenet and Puccini make Manon and des Grieux matter to us

MANON [sad and resigned]: Come now, Manon, no more chimeras,
where your mind goes while dreaming!
Leave these ephemeral desires
at the door of your convent!
Come now, Manon, no more desires, no more chimeras!

Beverly Sills (s), Manon Lescaut; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. ABC-DG, recorded July 1970

by Ken

This is the 16-year-old Manon of Massenet's Act I, arrived in Amiens by coach where she has been met -- and promptly abandoned -- by her cousin Lescaut for dumping off to a convent. (We're going to hear a fuller version of this scene later.)

A few weeks ago I began poking around The Story of the Chévalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut (the title of the novel by the Abbé Prévost which formed the basis for all the subsequent adaptations) as it was shaped by Jules Massenet for his operatic Manon. Then in Friday's preview we switched over to Puccini's later rendering, which he distinguished by calling it Manon Lescaut.

The last thing I'm interested in is seeing which opera is "better." They seem to me wonderfully complementary, a classic case of two great storytellers who tell the same story, which comes out somewhat different because of their different sensibilities, emphases, and audiences. And I think looking at both operas helps us focus on what makes the story of these doomed lovers so enduringly fascinating.

Let's start by going back to the beginnings of both operas. We already heard the brief Prelude to Massenet's opera, but let's hear it again, first in a performance we already heard, then in one we didn't.

MASSENET: Manon: Prelude

New Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. ABC-DG, recorded July 1970

Orchestra of the Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded July 1982

Massenet's curtain rises on a "genre" scene at the inn in Amiens where Manon and des Grieux are going to meet. Puccini begins his opera with a similar sort of scene, focused on the male students at the inn flirting with the young ladies.

NOW FOR PUCCINI'S OPENING --

Preview: The other operatic "Story of the Chévalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut"

DES GRIEUX: Gentle lady, accept my prayer:
let those sweet lips tell me your name.
MANON: Manon Lescaut is my name.

(1) Jussi Bjoerling (t), des Grieux; Licia Albanese (s), Manon; Rome Opera Orchestra, Jonel Perlea, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded July 1954
(2) Giuseppe di Stefano (t), des Grieux; Maria Callas (s), Manon; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded July 1957
(3) Richard Tucker (t), des Grieux; Renata Tebaldi (s), Manon; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Jan. 17, 1959

by Ken

We've already begun poking around the operafication of one of the literature's most commanding "love at first stories," that of the Chévalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut, as set forth originally novelistically by the Abbé Prévost. So far we've focused on the good times, the falling-madly-in-love times, as realized in music by Jules Massenet in his Manon. The young Puccini, having as yet no reputation to speak of, had the temerity to undertake another operatic Manon, and for him it was the breakthrough work. Manon Lescaut has its musicodramatic shortcomings, but it also contains large quantities of great music, and great dramatic music.

Just as in Massenet, Manon and des Grieux meet outside that inn in Amiens, after she has been deposited there by coach for transshipment to a convent -- though here the relation exercising such lack supervision is not her cousin but her brother. After the click-through we'll hear a full version of this compact scene. For now I want to focus first on those first words exchanged by the young people, and then jump a few minutes to the impact the encounter has on des Grieux.

PUCCINI: Manon Lescaut: Act I, des Grieux, "Donna non vidi mai"

DES GRIEUX: Never have I beheld a woman like this!
To tell her "I love you"
awakened my spirit to new life.
"Manon Lescaut is my name."
How those fragrant words
wander in my spirit
and caress my quivering heart.
O gentle murmur, ah! may it never cease!
"Manon Lescaut is my name."
Gentle murmur, ah! may it never cease!

Giuseppe di Stefano (t), des Grieux; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded July 1957

Richard Tucker (t), des Grieux; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Jan. 17, 1959

Not to worry, we are going to hear Bjoerling's "Donna non vidi mai," but for now I thought we'd hark back to the master, who recorded the aria only once, but I think once was all he needed.


Enrico Caruso, tenor; A. Regis Rossini, harp; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded in New York, Feb. 24, 1913