Spun off from today's main post: All of Mahler 5!

Today's main post, "We hear the kinship between the Adagietto of Mahler 5 and 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,' right? How about the differences?," is here.




The legendary Adolf Herseth, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's trumpet principal for an amazing 53 years (1948-2001, plus three more in "emeritus" status!), launches the opening "Funeral March" of Mahler 5 in recordings made near the beginning and end of Georg Solti's 22-year tenure as music director -- the first in Chicago's Medinah Temple in March 1970, the second a CSO-on-tour performance recorded live in Vienna's Sofiensaal Nov. 30, 1990 (where you'll note that Sir Georg, as he'd been since 1972, is much more attentive to Mahler's dynamic marking of p [soft] for the first two bars, with sudden sf attacks just on the downbeats).

"Those closest to Mahler found the Fifth Symphony a particularly speaking likeness of his personality, and he too may therefore have wanted to make it as accurate as possible a self-portrait of himself in a particularly happy period of his life."

-- William Mann, from a booklet note on Mahler 5 (©1969)

by Ken

As I wrote in today's main post, "We hear the kinship between the Adagietto of Mahler 5 and 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,' right? How about the differences?":

DON'T TELL ANYONE, BUT REMEMBER HOW I SAID
THAT WE REALLY NEED TO HEAR ALL OF MAHLER 5?

I've already made up audio clips for two complete performances. I may yet spin this off into a separate post, or postlet, with some added comment. But for now, here it is.

No, here it is, all spun off!

We're not going to attempt anything fancy here. The idea is just to be able to hear the whole of Mahler 5. As I noted in today's main post, as quoted above, the audio clips were all made and ready to roll: of two performances, a 2002 live one by Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the 1947 recording by Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic that features in today's earlier post. We're just going to hear them part by part, each part prefaced by some helpful guidance from critic William Mann (from the same booklet note on the symphony which is quoted from above).


WE'LL START WITH A QUICK OVERVIEW FROM W.M.

Mahler's division of the Fifth Symphony into three parts but five movements is not one of convenience alone: the first and second movements are materially connected, and the finale takes some of its subordinate themes from the Adagietto; the central Scherzo stands alone, longer than the rest, effectively carrying the main symphonic weight of the piece. This Scherzo is in D major, so is the Finale, and it would be right, I think, to feel the whole symphony as being in D major. Part I of the symphony begins in C-sharp minor and ends in A minor: its two movements form a sort of prologue to the rest of the symphony, in which Mahler postulates a series of pessimistic ideas and argues them symphonically until they seem to be conquered by the bright, clean light of D major which is glimpsed in the second movement and emerges with the scherzo. -- W.M.

NOW LET'S HEAR THE SYMPHONY!

We hear the kinship between the Adagietto of Mahler 5 and "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen," right? How about the differences?

Including an unflinching glimpse into the rarely
visited innards of the Sunday Classics blogworks

REVISED CAUTIONARY NOTE: This post as, er, "finished" grew really long ("hellaciously long" is how I put it in an earlier cautionary note). Feel free to jump around, picking at anything that may catch your eye. You can always go back and fill in. Note that there's a surprise at the end.

[PRE-CAUTIONARY LOOKBACK: In case anyone happens to have seen earlier versions of this post and remembers the post-in-progress "cautionary" notes, or if anyone who hasn't seen them is curious, I've snipped them out of here and dumped them in -- purely for the record! -- at the end.]


When Christa Ludwig (born March 16, 1928, and so now 92) made her splendid first (piano-accompanied) recording of the haunting Mahler Rückert setting "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen," in November 1957, with her voice still in its sunny prime, she was at 29 already a veteran, remarkably mature singer. When she made her final recording of the song, in January 1993 (again with piano), she was closing in on 65, but you may decide that this last version is her most beautiful -- because before we're done today we'll have heard five performances recorded over this 35-year period. (Do I have to underscore what a remarkable span this is for a singer? Not just to still be singing at 65 but to be singing with such poised beauty as well as artistic purpose.) Before we get back to Christa, however, we have other business to take care of, including hearing two other singers' differently special performances of what may be Mahler's best-known song.


"Pervaded by the familiar romantic mood of withdrawal from the hurly-burly of life into the quietude of the inner self, not untouched with sadness, the Adagietto has much in common with Mahler's great song 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen' ('I am lost to the world'), which ends with the words 'I am alone, in my own heaven, in my love, in my music.' "

-- Deryck Cooke, from a CD booklet note on the Mahler Fifth Symphony

MAHLER: Symphony No. 5:
iv. Adagietto. Sehr langsam (Very slow)


BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, cond. Live performance, 1970

Vienna Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, cond. DG, recorded March 1996

MAHLER: "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"
("I have lost track of the world")

Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. EMI, recorded May 4, 1967

José van Dam, bass-baritone; Orchestre National de Lille, Jean-Claude Casadesus, cond. Forlane, recorded April 1986

by Ken

Okay, folks, we have a game plan of sorts, and we're by golly gonna stick to it, sort of. Two weeks ago I was lost in wonder ("Hokey-smoke, it's like we're actually in Berlin (sort of) for Easter week") over the Berlin Philharmonic's four-event free live-streamed virtual Easter Festival, during the time when they were supposed to be in Baden-Baden for their annual actual Easter Festival. Each of the four episodes consisted of material -- interviews, conversations, and some chamber performances -- coming to us direct from the orchestra's audienceless Berlin home, the Philharmonie, surrounding performances by the Berlin Philharmonic itself of single movements or in some cases whole works drawn from the orchestra's extensive video archive in its Digital Concert Hall.

As it happened, the first of the four episodes I saw, and the only one I'd seen when I started writing that piece, was Episode 2, an all-Mahler extravaganza, so that's what I was most caught up in, and what I first thought we might sort of re-create here at Sunday Classics. (Note that all four episodes are now safely ensconced in the DCH, still free. In fact, as I noted, in recognition of the current world crisis the DCH is offering everyone a free 30-day subscription for its paid content. You have to register for the site, but registration has always been free, and has always entitled everyone access to some wonderful always-free content: some concerts, but most importantly a splendid collection of guest-performer interviews conducted by members of the orchestra. Be sure to check it out.)


A QUESTION: WHAT MADE ME FEEL SO "DANGLY"
HEARING THE FINALE OF MAHLER 5 ON ITS OWN?

Do we need a reason to remember Jan DeGaetani? No, but today we do need her to sing a special song

Jan DeGaetani (1933-1989)

-- from the Center for American Music Library Web page "Stephen Foster Lyrics"

With Gilbert Kalish, piano. From the Nonesuch CD Songs of America, recorded Dec. 21-23, 1987



by Ken

No, this isn't the song we "need to hear Jan sing." No. It's just the song I usually think of first when I think of her. (No, to be clear, I didn't know her. I just call her "Jan" because, well, I think she might feel less formal, more comfortable that way.) I promised, in one of several earlier attempts at writing some sort of post, that we were going to hear this "uniquely cherishable" singer in "a perfect recording," and explained later that I couldn't say exactly what I meant by "a perfect recording" -- but that if you listen to  this breathtakingly beautiful performance of a song that Jan caused me to think of as astonishingly beautiful, as recorded with longtime friend and colleague (and, oh yes, excellent pianist) Gil Kalish, I invite you to tell me that this isn't a perfect recording.

"Beautiful Child of Song" comes from this CD recital, and pretty much all of these Songs of America are a heap more sophisticated than our little Stephen Foster ditty. But my goodness . . . well, you heard, right?


SO WHAT'S THE SONG WE NEED TO HEAR JAN SING?

Reminder: Episode 4 of the Berlin Philharmonic's Easter@Philharmonie Festival live-streams at 2pm EDT

by Ken

Just remember that to enjoy free content from the Digital Concert Hall, you do have to be registered. So if you 're not registered, be sure to allow some time for that! And remember that at present the DCH website will greet you with the offer of a free 30 days' worth of subscription for the huge repository of concerts available only to subscribers!

One by one the four episodes of the virtual Easter Festival, with host Sarah Willis and all our other new old friends from the orchestra, are making their way into the DCH, all free. And I can't stress enough how interesting I find the enormous reservoir of interviews -- always free -- with musicians appearing with the orchestra, really conversations with the orchestra members conducting them (often making reference to things they observed during rehearsals). I've been known to watch five or six at a time. And for us English-speakers, everything either is in English or is subtitled.

#

Hokey-smoke, it's like we're actually in Berlin (well, sort of) for Easter week

[Cross-posted from DownWithTyranny, though somewhat revised and expanded here -- well, considerably expanded. See the NOTE ON THE CROSS-POSTING quite a ways down.]


We see the interior of the Great Hall of Berlin's Philharmonie, the (shall we say) unusual building built in 1960-63 -- under the watchful eye of then-chief conductor Herbert von Karajan -- to house one of the world's elite orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic. Imagine it even emptier, with nothing on the stage floor and dimly lit, since at present the orchestra, like so many performers of all descriptions around the world, is unable to perform before live audiences.


Now imagine, in the empty, sparsely lit Philharmonie, Stefan Dohr (the Berlin Phil's principal horn since 1993, in which year he turned 28!), alone on the stage floor in casual dress (jeans, as I recall), playing this:



(Yes, that's Stefan playing. At least I'm pretty sure -- see the box below.)

by Ken

So here I was a few days ago going on and on about the treasure trove of riches providentially available to us online in our time of crisis [Editorial reminder: This part is the original version as it appeared on DWT; the link is to an earlier DWT post, "Can You Imagine What This Crisis Would Be Like If We -- Or At Least Lots Of Us -- Didn't Have Access To Today's Onilne Resources?" -- Ed.], and now I'm spending half my time sharing a week's worth of Easter with the Berlin Philharmonic, absolutely free.

The other Stefan, de Laval Jezierski

It's a moment I won't soon forget, watching Stefan Dohr standing alone on the darkish Philharmonie stage floor, talking to a live-stream camera about the music of Gustav Mahler and the "festival of horns" he bequeathed to the world's horn players in his symphonies, then playing the haunting horn call that opens the first of the two "Nachtmusik" ("Night Music") movements, the 2nd and 4th movements overall, of Mahler's five-movement Seventh Symphony. After Stefan told us that one thing he misses when he practices some of Mahler's great horn solos at home is the echo the composer liked to provide, usually played by the 3rd horn, he raised his instrument and started sounding this gorgeous horn call -- and lo! there were answering echoes! The camera showed us that they were coming from a farther-up reach of the empty Philharmonie, where Stefan's Berlin Phil colleague Stefan de Leval Jezierski could be seen manning his horn. Wow!!!

IN THE AUDIO CLIP WE JUST HEARD,
DID STEFAN ALSO MISS THE ECHOES?

We need music! Now, I was thinking about Mahler's "Die zwei blauen Augen," the last of the four Wayfarer Songs --

Plus: We have a special musical bonus at the end!

Want a hint? I'll go you one better: Here's an audio tease --



Now could we have a post (of some sort?)


Irmgard Seefried sings Richard Strauss's "Morgen!," Op. 27, No. 4, in the composer's own orchestration, with Piero Bellugi conducting the Orchestre National de l'ORTF in Paris's Salle Pleyel, Jan. 20, 1965. Note -- as the camera does! -- the soloist playing the violin solos around which Strauss built his orchestration of the song. Isn't it interesting that in January 1965 the Orchestre National, at least for this concert, had a female concertmaster?

by Ken

This is a time, it seems to me, when we need more music. So that's pretty much what we're going to do today.

WHERE WE ARE NOW, BLOG-WISE?

Yes, I know we've got a growing tangle of loose threads, and I hope gradually to work our way through them. I'm even adding a couple of more. Last week's two-item "Rita Gorr sings Gluck" mini-compendium led me to want to listen to her performances of those two arias (Orfeo's "Che farò senza Euridice?" and Alceste's "Divinités du Styx") in context with other singers', to get a better sense of why Gorr's mean so much to me. As I've played with this, the project has become more and more intriguing, as to what makes these arias work and not work, so I still want to pursue this.

What's more, the SC vault has a good helping of Gorr as Saint-Saëns's Dalila, and a couple of snatches of her Walküre Fricka, which I want to bring out. And considering that I made particular reference to these roles along with Verdi's Amneris, I'd like to add some samples of that to what shapes up as yet another post.

AS FOR TODAY, WE NEED MUSIC NOW, DON'T WE?

Like it says up top, during the week I found myself thinking about, and hearing in my head, "Die zwei blauen Augen, the last of Mahler's four Songs of a Wayfarer, a song to which we once devoted a good deal of attention, icluding most of a post of its own (see below). I vaguely recalled that I had the Wayfarer Songs on a DVD of some sort, and finally tracked it down to an extremely miscellaneous one that EMI issued in its "Classic Archive" series, which they couldn't find a better way of titling than:

Schwarzkopf    Seefried
Fischer-Dieskau

Which is (let the record show) absolutely accurate. We get soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in an October 1961 staged-for-TV excerpt from her most famous role, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, giving us the final chunk of Act I, starting in the middle of the Marschallin's great monologue, at "Kann ich auch an ein Mädel erinnern"her sudden, haunting recollection of her innocent younger self, "fresh from the convent," with mezzo Hertha Töpper (who died just a week ago Saturday, a few weeks short of her 96th birthday); then soprano Irmgard Seefried is seen in two orchestral song groups via French TV: five by Richard Strauss from January 1965, including the "Morgen!" performance atop this post, and three by Mahler; and Dietrich Fischer Dieskau singing -- yes! -- Mahler's Wayfarer Songs from Japan's NHK, October 1960, with an outstanding Mahlerian, Paul Kletzki conducting. (There's also a Fischer-Dieskau "bonus": four core-repertory Schubert songs from 1959, with the great Gerald Moore at the piano.)


I WOUND UP WATCHING EVERYTHING ON THE DVD

In a crazy world, we hear a bit more Freni, plus -- since the world needs music -- a bit (actually two bits) of "Rita Gorr sings Gluck"

As Act I of Carmen begins --


From Pierre-Auguste Lamy's famous series of lithographs, Act I of Carmen as given at its (not very happy) 1875 premiere at the Opéra-Comique


[fate motif at 2:13; start of Act I c3:37; Micaëla's entrance c5:33] Claude Calès (b), Moralès; Andréa Guiot (s), Micaëla; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded July 1964
[Note: There are English texts for the whole scene farther down in the post.]

by Ken

Huh? "Rita Gorr sings Gluck?" You may wonder, what ever is he on about now?

Georges Prêtre around this time

We'll get to that, but first let me sort of explain the clip we just heard. While doing some wildly assorted Carmen listening for this series of posts remembering Mirella Freni, I happened to listen from the start to Act I as conducted with such unforced yet physically alive pulse by Georges Prêtre -- in a recording that most of us usually think of as "the Callas Carmen." Since the tiny bit of work we're going to accomplish this week calls for us to listen to just this 10 minutes or so of music, I thought we'd lead off with this performance, of a kind I haven't encountered in the here and now for, oh, several decades?


OKAY, OKAY, I KNOW I SHUT DOWN LAST WEEK . . .

"Et vive la musique qui nous tombe du ciel!": Still remembering Freni, we want a Carmen mindset for our meetup with Micaëla

"Et vive la musique qui nous tombe du ciel!"
("And long live music that falls to us from heaven" [or "the sky"])

-- Carmen, in Act II (not to worry, we'll hear a fuller version later)

(Do I have to tell you who the singer is? Again, we'll be hearing more.)

Now, let's just meet Micaëla
(We hear her first appearance, near the start of Carmen,
via the three recordings of the role that Mirella Freni made)


"Don José? We all know him." Micaëla (France Bellemare), Moralès (Alexandre Sylvestre), and the rest of the soldiers at Opéra de Montréal, 2019. (Say, ya think it's easy finding pictures of Moralès?) (photo by Yves Renaud)

A square in Seville. At right the entrance to the tobacco factory. At left the guardhouse. MORALÈS and the soldiers are grouped in front of the guardhouse.

[In the scene so far, we've seen the on-duty company of guardsmen with their sergeant frankly killing time -- smoking, chatting, and watching the many passersby ("Funny people those people are") pass by.]

MICAËLA appears. Hesitant, embarrassed, she looks at the soldiers, advances, retreats, etc.

MORALÈS: Now look at this little lady
who seems to want to speak to us.
See, see! She turns, she hesitates . . .
SOLDIERS: To her aid we must go!
MORALÈS [chivalrous]: What are you looking for, lovely lady?
MICAËLA: Me, I'm looking for a sergeant.
MORALÈS [with emphasis]: That's me . . . here I am!
MICAËLA: My sergeant is named Don José . . .
[lightly] do you know him?
MORALÈS [light]: Don José? We all know him.
MICAËLA [with joy]: Really? Is he with you, please?
MORALÈS [with elegance]: He's not a sergeant in our company.
MICAËLA [disconsolate]: Then he's not here.
MORALÈS: No, my charmer, no, my charmer, he's not here,
but in just a bit he will be here, yes, in just a bit he'll be here.
[light but strongly rhythmic] He'll be here when the incoming guard comes to replace the outgoing guard.
SOLDIERS: He'll be here when the incoming guard
comes to replace the outgoing guard.
MORALÈS [very chivalrous]: But while waiting for him to come,
would you, beautiful child, would you be so kind
as to enter our place for a moment?
MICAËLA [frightened]: Your place?
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS: Our place.
MICAËLA [frightened]: Your place?
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS: Our place.
MICAËLA [delicately]: Oh no, oh no, many thanks, kind soldiers.
MORALÈS: Enter without fear, darling.
I promise you that we'll show for your dear self
all the consideration that's required.
MICAËLA: I don't doubt it. However,
I will return. I will return, it's more prudent!
I will return when the incoming guard
replaces the outgoing guard.
[delicately] I will return when the incoming guard
replaces the outgoing guard.
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS [overlapping]: You have to stay, for the incoming guard is going to replace the outgoing guard.
MORALÈS: You will stay.
MICAËLA: No, no!
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS [overlapping, surrounding her]: You will stay.
MICAËLA: Goodbye, kind soldiers!

with Bernard Demigny (b), Moralès; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA, recorded November 1963

with Claude Meloni (b), Moralès; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded mostly in July 1969

with Nicolas Rivenq (b), Moralès; Chorus of Radio France, Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded July 13-22, 1988

by Ken

And that's the extent of our first encounter with Micaëla. I think, though, that even this much is enough to suggest why Mirella Freni could make such an impact in the role, lousy French and all. There's the sheer beauty of the singing, of course, but just as important is that sense of "persondom" she brought to her roles, by whatever combination of natural charm and performing craft. If it's important that we care about Micaëla, and I think it's pretty important (my goal this week was a remembrance that could have run under the title "How much do we (should we?) care about Micaëla, and why?"), these are invaluable tools.

Okay, okay, once again I thought this post was going to be an easy one, or at least a relatively manageable one. The goal this week was a remembrance that would have run under the title "How much do we (should we?) care about Micaëla, and why?," and since l left off last week I was under the honest impression that the follow-up was almost ready to roll: to finish rolling out a theory of how Bizet's Micaëla, like Verdi's Nannetta, provided Freni with such a strong springboard to stardom, even though these aren't roles expect to lend themselves to this.

Alas, so often things that are supposed to be easy, or relatively manageable, turn out not to be. When his post is finally done (see the note on timing below), we're barely going to get through our investigation of Micaëla. Along the way we keep running into issues, issues of all sizes and shapes, and while I've ruthlessly turned a deaf ear to many of those diversionary lures, there are some issues I didn't think we could reasonably and we're going to touch on some issues I think it would be a shame to sidestep as we're passing through.

A QUICK, OR AT LEAST QUICK-AS-POSSIBLE,
NOTE ON DON JOSÉ'S (AND MORALÈS'S) RANK

"Sweet memories of our land fill him with strength and courage": Freni as Micaëla

Franco Corelli and Mirella Freni -- not as Don José and Micaëla, alas, but as
Gounod's Roméo and Juliette, at the Met in 1969 (photo by Louis Melancon)

MICAËLA: Your mother was leaving chapel with me,
and that's when, while kissing me --
"You'll go," she said to me, "to the city;
the route isn't long, once in Seville,
you'll search out my son, my José, my child.
And you'll tell him that his mother
dreams night and day about her absent one,
that she regrets and that she hopes,
that she forgives and that she waits.
All that -- right, sweetie? --
on my behalf you'll tell him;
and this kiss that I give you,
on my behalf you'll pass it on to him."
DON JOSÉ: A kiss from my mother?
MICAËLA: A kiss for her son.
DON JOSÉ: A kiss from my mother!
MICAËLA: A kiss for her son.
José, I pass it on to you, as I promised.
DON JOSÉ: My mother, I see her!
Yes, I see again my village!
O memories of other times!
Sweet memories of our land! etc.
MICAËLA [overlapping JOSÉ]: His mother, he sees her!
He sees again his village!
O memories of other times!
Memories of our land! etc.
BOTH: Memories of our land,
you fill his/my heart with strength and courage. etc.
DON JOSÉ [to himself]: Who knows of what demon
I was going to be the prey!
[Collected again] Even from afar my mother protects me,
and this kiss that she sends me,
[with élan] this kiss that she sends me
wards off danger and saves her son.
MICAËLA [like recitative -- animatedly]:
What demon? what danger?
I don't really understand. What does that mean?
DON JOSÉ: Nothing, nothing!
Let's speak of you, our messenger;
you're going to return to our land?
MICAËLA: Yes, this very evening . . .
tomorrow I'll see your mother.
DON JOSÉ: You'll see her! Well then, you'll tell her --
[with spirit that her son loves her and reveres her,
and that he repents today.
He wishes that back there his mother may be happy with him
All that -- right, sweetie? --
on my behalf you'll tell her,
and this kiss that I give you,
on my behalf you'll pass it on to her.
MICAËLA [simply]: Yes, I promise you . . .
on behalf of her son,
I will pass it on as I've promised.
DON JOSÉ: My mother, I see her!
Yes, I see again my village!
O memories of other times!
Sweet memories of our land! etc.
MICAËLA [overlapping JOSÉ]: His mother, he sees her!
He sees again his village!
O memories of other times!
Memories of our land! etc.
BOTH: Memories of our land,
you fill his/my heart with strength and courage, etc.

with Franco Corelli (t), Don José; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA, recorded November 1963

with Jon Vickers (t), Don José; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded July and September 1969
And finally, um, a 53-year-old Micaëla?

with Neil Shicoff (t), Don José; Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded July 13-22, 1988

by Ken

When last we convened, the immediate plan called for further consideration of three roles that (in addition to Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff, which we've already considered as much as we're going to) figured importantly in the burgeoning international career of Mirella Freni: Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen, Adina in Donizetti's Elixir of Love, and inevitably her early-career signature role, Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème.

The most fun, certainly, would (or rather will) be Adina, because, while the role may not have figured all that prominently in her career, her assumption of it unleashed an opera-long explosion of sheer vocal joy. But I thought we needed to hold off on that, at least to consider Micaëla, because, as I noted last time, it's such an extraordinary thing to have a singer achieve international sizzle status off of what we normally think of as second-line (if not third-line) lyric-soprano roles like Nannetta and Micaëla. As I said before, other future stars have sung one or both of these roles on their way up, but I can't think of another soprano who was sprung to stardom by either.

Falstaff, to begin with, is such a resolutely ensemble piece that you wouldn't think Nannetta, so carefully threaded by Boito and Verdi through the opera's Merry Wives scenes, before being let loose in the magical final scene in Windsor Park as the Queen of the Fairies, the wives' secret weapon for the tormenting of Falstaff, could be that kind of attention-getter. My theory is that Nannetta embodies the most magical of the many strands of magic woven into the opera: the love and hope invested by the near-octogenarian Verdi in the children, Nannetta and Fenton.

Ostensibly Falstaff is "about" Sir John's grotesque attempt at wooing the Mistresses Ford and Page and the comeuppance delivered by these Merry Wives of Windsor. But in the end, it seems to me, the really important thing that happens is Alice Ford's triumphant thwarting of her husband's monstrous plan to marry their daughter off to the wildly inappropriate Dr. Cajus. There are a lot of reasons why I return so frequently to the 1963 RCA-Decca Falstaff recording conducted so wonderfully by Sir Georg Solti, but certainly one indelible attractions is the performances of Freni and Alfredo Kraus as Nannetta and Fenton.


NOW, AS FOR MICAËLA

"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

"On the breath of a fragrant breeze": More from Mirella Freni

After singing Nannetta at Covent Garden in 1961 (with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting), Freni made her La Scala debut in the role in January 1962 -- alongside Luigi Alva as Fenton. [photo by Erio Piccagliani © Teatro alla Scala]

FENTON [singing as he goes out]:
Kissed lips don't lose their good fortune.
NANNETTA [continuing FENTON's song as she joins the other women]: Instead they renew themselves as does the moon, as does the moon.

Luigi Alva (t), Fenton; Mirella Freni (s), Nannetta; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. Live performance from the Hague, June 20, 1963

by Ken

If you were here for last week's first installment of a Mirella Freni remembrance, you know our immediate destination. Following the tease of one of the amazing stolen moments between Nannetta and her adored Fenton thrread through the first Garden Scene of Verdi's Falstaff, we have on promise "Nannetta's shimmering aria in her disguise as the Queen of the Fairies in the magical masquerade final scene."

So let's listen just to the aria, which just happens to have been included in that 1959 Eurodisc operatic recital we heard from last week. As part of the tormenting of Falstaff planned by our Merry Wives of Windsor, Sir John has been lured to the scary depths of Windsor Park at midnight for what he expects to be a tryst with Mistress Alice Ford. For this scheme, Mistress Ford has cast her radiant daughter Nannetta as the Queen of the Fairies.

VERDI: Falstaff: Act III, Scene 2,
Nannetta, "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio"

NANNETTA: On the breath of a fragrant breeze
fly, nimble spirits;
through the branches appears
the blue gleam of the rising moon.
Dance! and let your soft steps
fit the soft music,
joining magic
dancing to the song.

Let us wander beneath the moon,
choosing among the flowers;
every blossom carries
in its heart its own fortune.
With lilies and violets
let us write secret names;
from our enchanted hands
let there spring words,
words illuminated
with pure silver and gold,
poems and charms. The spirits
have flowers as their cyphers.

[translation by Lionel Salter]

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


WE'RE NOT GOING TO GET FARTHER TODAY, BUT WE CAN
AT LEAST HEAR THE SCENE AS IT OCCURS IN THE OPERA

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