Straussian Splendor & Lists

It seems like just yesterday, but in fact, it was months ago that I first walked in Herr Oktavian's shoes, and I miss him!! Just in time for the melancholy to settle in, New York's radio station, 96.3 WQXR FM will broadcast one of our performances recorded live in June from the San Francisco Opera this Saturday, October 13 at 1:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time. I haven't heard it, yet, so your guess is as good as mine if I was "on" that day or not, but I can promise that I gave it everything I had! (If you don't live in the Big Apple, you can listen via their web site anywhere in the world!) I'll personally be attending a Flamenco Festival here in Geneva, so I will have to stay in my current world of Handelian bliss and leave Strauss as a souvenir for the moment!

However, I can tell you that having the chance to hear Soile Isokowski, Miah Persson, and Kristinn Sigmundsson in the leading roles is an event NOT to be missed, and that's not even taking into account the spectacular playing of the orchestra under Donald Runnicle's baton. Oh, I miss them all!

The other loose end is to thank everyone who took the time to vote for me for the "Gramophone Artist of the Year". I extend hearty congratulations to Julia Fischer for taking home the prize, and if you're interested in seeing how each country voted, you can click here. (Needless to say I send up a big "shout out" to the US of A and Italy!!) In all sincerity, I completely get the old adage of "it's an honor just to be nominated", for when I look at the other names on the list, I am taken quite aback.

And so it's back to the piano for a bit more work on Ariodante; we are full steam into rehearsals, which means adapting ornaments to the staging, adapting preconceived ideas of the character, and discovering a true masterpiece. Not a bad day's work!

Photos: Leonardo Vordoni

I'm neutral now

Welcome to Geneva! This is my 3rd long stay in the lovely city, and this means an air of 'coming home' wafts about it, which is always welcome in my line of work. I know the grocery stores, I have my favorite Boulangeries, and the cost of things no longer sends me into cardiac arrest, for I know what to expect to pay for a measly "Coca Light"!

There are 2 things I love about being here: first, the crosswalks. Pedestrians are nearly worshipped here, for when one saunters across any of the numerous cross walks, EVERY car politely STOPS! No impatience, no gunning of the engine -- you just WALK! It's so civilized and decidely SWISS! I would like to thank all the courteous drivers for the stress-free walk to work each day!

The second thing I love, (at least for the first part of my stay): the quiet. The calm. The tranquility. The ease of life. Geneva sometimes gets a bad rap for being 'boring', but again, when you keep a rather hectic schedule, there is something calming and rejuvenating about being able to relax in clean air and beautiful surroundings. It gives you time to do inane things such as watch the following:



This was sent courtesy of a beautiful singer in San Francisco -- thanks, darlin'!

ENJOY!

Day 8: Il Finale

All that remained today was an attempted (and failed) incantation, and an attempted (and, again, failed) seduction, resulting in a fierce and fiery curse. Oh, it’s good to be bad!


As ‘luck’ would have it, I had a rather unsettling phone call from my manager before leaving my hotel room to record for prosperity these final, demented scenes, and I found that the frustration which welled up in me, actually fueled a bit of extra rage and fury during the taping, hopefully making for a thrilling account of the accompanied recitative before “Ombre pallide”, and for the raging aria, “Ma quando tornerai”. The uphill walk to the church consisted of a self-pep-talk along the lines of “you have work to do – don’t worry about things you cannot control.” Come to find out, even when things are going well, this business remains quite a challenging one to stomach much of the time. But happily, the music, once again, barreled into my consciousness and saved the day!

The dynamic of the recording shifts drastically on the final day of taping, I’ve found; while on the one hand everyone is exhausted, fatigued and utterly drained, we are somehow also charged up knowing that we are nearing the end of this adventurous journey together, and if we can just push through, we’ll be on the other side of a rather enormous accomplishment; and when a group has such special chemistry as this one does, magic can actually happen.

Immediately we found a wonderful atmosphere for the recitativo “Ah, Ruggiero crudel”, which assaulted the silence with its intensity and urgency, countered immediately with Alcina’s desperation and fury at not being successful in her summoning of the dark forces around her. It’s Handel at his wicked best, and it gives a singer so much astounding material with which to work, every measure rich in possibility. Perhaps my voice teacher wouldn’t approve of all my technical choices, but this is a case where you simply cannot hold anything back, where everything in your arsenal of expressivity must be employed – the character, the drama, the composer demand it!! Ah, it’s just a dream for me to be given a character like this to sink my teeth into. (You compare this kind of recitativo to the continuo aria, “Si, son quella”, and you have the only demonstration necessary of why Handel’s genius is so vast and awe-inspiring!) I was in heaven.

And last, but certainly not least, the final piece of the puzzle: the raging, scorching aria as Alcina relentlessly thrusts her fury toward Ruggiero. The gloves were off, we dug in, and we went for it with everything we had. It cost a bit, as all of us definitely felt the fatigue in the end, but there was a determination to make the most of this violent number, and my hope is that it will have the desired effect of truly showing the fury of a (perhaps, ‘slightly demented’) woman scorned.

And so … there is my Alcina.

Now I must turn it over to the powers that be, let them work their magic, and wait eagerly for the release. It’s interesting to project myself into the future and think of the moment when the first copy will arrive in my mailbox: will I even remember the emotion that has stirred in me over these past 8 days? Will I be disappointed in the final cut? Will I be surprised? Will I hear it and think, “Oh damn, I really missed the mark on that aria”, or think that I did way too much, or far too little. See, here is what I love about what I do: it constantly teaches me about life: I’ve done the very best that I could with what I had at my disposal in this moment in time – now I must let go of it, and what will be, will be. Between now and the release (probably the beginning of ’09?), so much of my life will have unfolded: new roles, new cities, new experiences, bad days, beautiful days, heartbreak, success, failure – I will surely be a different person when that first copy arrives than I am today, and unquestionably I will wish I had done many things differently.

But in the end, I know that I did all I could do, and after the first or second horrendous listening (the first listen of a disc is always pure torture and agony for me), I’m sure I’ll start to come back to this moment in time, remembering the wonderful quality of work, recalling the sweat and the fear and the joy and the discovery, and I’ll feel such gratitude, as I do today, for having spent 10 glorious days surrounded by a wealth of beauty and creativity.

Well, that’s a wrap.

Photos:

*Part of our basso continuio group: Davide & "It's only a half-step" Nils ;-)
*The parting view from my window

Day 7: The Work

One thing I might have failed to mention in my previous post was that after the concert, I got to bed around 4:00 am. You see, we sang in Viterbo, which is roughly a 45-minute bus ride away from Tuscania. We also started the concert at roughly 9:15 pm. Remember that Alcina also happens to be a VERY long opera. Throw in a lot of pulsing adrenalin after the concert, and well, you can do the math!!

But there is no rest for the weary when a recording is involved – so today it was back to the studio for the aria, “Mi restano le lagrime”. Alcina has just realized she has once and for all been completely rejected by Ruggiero, and she cries out that all that is left for her are her tears; that all her pleading to the gods has gone unanswered – she has been shown no mercy. In the glorious and surprising B section, which turns to the major key, she says, “If only I could die – for then I would be granted relief.” But she doesn’t – in fact, naturally, she stays alive to sing the da capo! It’s a wrenching aria, written in the elusive tempo marking of “larghetto”, which can be interpreted very broadly, often never settling into something convincing.

In fact, it took us some time to find our ‘groove’ as an ensemble. I think some of the problem was over-all fatigue (I know I woke up this morning feeling as if I had run a marathon yesterday – everything in my body was exhausted), and surely the orchestra was spent, as well. On a day like today, it’s definitely a ‘low energy thing’. But it also happens to be the trickiest aria for me vocally, as the tessitura is relentlessly high, and so today was definitely HARD WORK. It’s tricky to come off of such a high as last night, and recapture that energy you need, to be back fully into the character’s story, however if you work at it, you CAN find your way.

HOWEVER, we are all professionals, and we really summoned our forces and upped the concentration quotient and were able to finally find the magic! Once I stopped dragging down the tempo (that’s that dreaded ‘larghetto’ for you!), and once the producer found the key word (“It’s missing the TENSION it needs”), THEN things snapped into place. They needed to, because this wasn’t an aria I had the luxury of recording take after take: I needed it to be economical. Again, that’s where the professionalism comes in, you summon all your strength and force and concentration, and you DO IT!!

I would never want every recording day to be like this, but there is a certain satisfaction in doing the hard work, having it pay off, and calling it a day! “It’s a day,” and there is a beer somewhere with my name on it!

Photos:

*From a local hybiscus bush on the way to the recording
*Part of the convent where we are recording - an old abandoned convent which is for sale, I hear!

Day 6: The Puzzle

What a RUSH. Last night I had the opportunity to put all the pieces of the Alcina-puzzle together, and it felt AMAZING! Try as one may, it’s impossible to know how a role will feel in its totality until your perform it from top to bottom, feeling the arc, the ebb and flow of the character’s ever-changing situation, and feeling how one scene affects the next in the context of the entire evening. What an astonishing character this Sorceress is!

I’m very happy to report that I felt my approach was really valid, and actually worked to great effect in the end. It finally hit me what it is that I LOVE about this woman: when she is strong, a wavering frailty and vulnerability lurks right beneath the surface, and when she is weak and fragile, a pulsing intensity and strength relentlessly pushes her on. She is a real woman. I did an interview this morning, and the German interviewer asked me, “Do you think Handel understood women?” And I had never thought of it in those terms, however to my sensibilities, without question, he GOT us (just as Mozart miraculously understood the Countess in Nozze di Figaro.) I’m not sure how a man of his standing, and with his ‘reputation’ possessed such a comprehension of the female complexities, but that’s why the journey I took last night was so gratifying – he understood this delicate, powerful woman.

It’s a rather strange phenomenon performing an opera in ‘concert version’; it’s a real pastiche of intimated drama, intensified music making, and raw emotion. I find that as a performer, a million different thoughts go through my head, because where I would normally be off-stage during the course of the show, in this case I’m sitting there in plain sight, hearing the conversations my character is not meant to hear, essentially joining the audience in rapt attention. In the case of last night, I found myself marveling at the energy that is transmitted from the orchestra alone (and this is what I LOVE about baroque orchestra musicians): each solitary player is completely and utterly committed to the performance. Each instrumentalist is listening with such attention to the singers, and to each other, but above that, they each are WILLING the performance to be special. There is such a dedicated commitment from every single one of them, which is quite beautiful to witness, for sadly, I find it can often be missing in ‘standard’ orchestras. This group is something incredibly special, and it has been an honor to make music with them – thankfully, I’m not done, yet!!!

Tomorrow, it’s back to the microphones!

Photos:

*Since I was rather preoccupied last night at the concert, I didn't get any photos, but I do like this photo of Davide's double bass which I shot during the recording sessions

Day 5: Rest

So it’s not exactly the 7th day, but the boss decried it a day of rest anyway! Actually, it was more the luck of the draw, as most of my recits have been recorded already, and they needed to play catch up with the others, and since we’re saving my last 2 arias for the final 2 days of recording, my day was FREE! It’s good timing, as we have the first of our 3 concerts in Viterbo tomorrow evening, and so it gives me a chance to stay quiet for a few hours, which I happily did.

Today was a day to catch up on a load of email (courtesy of our VERY slow internet connection here at the hotel – remember, we’re in Italy!), to read a bit more of Sidney Poitier’s gripping autobiography, “The Measure of a Man” (stunning and inspiring!), and to plunge forward into the land of Ariodante which starts immediately after the Paris concert. How strange to have the world of the feminine Sorceress, Alcina, clash mightily with that of the masculine hero, Ariodante – both by Handel, and yet a universe apart. (Or ARE they?)

I’m having a hard time putting my mind into the character of Ariodante for the moment, because at this point it’s much more about the dry, technical preparation of drilling notes, speaking the text, etc. To be walking side by side with both of these roles simultaneously highlights for me the different stages of role preparation: I’m completely engrossed in the psychology of Alcina at this point, having already done the ‘dry’ preparation, and it’s so satisfying to feel as if I’m really in her shoes! Then I open the Ariodante score, and I’m frustrated with how much groundwork must be laid to arrive at the ‘fun’ part of character exploration. I almost always feel this way (impatient!) with a role when I’m REALLY eager to plunge full-steam ahead and create a real, 3-dimensional character – but the reality sets in as I plunder my way through some quick passage work and it’s a 7-car pile-up-mess-of-a-wreck, that I must be a ‘good singer’, and go back and work the fundamentals. (I suppose this is the discipline my college teacher always talked about!)

Slow and steady definitely wins the race on these things!

Someone must have heard my prayers, because the menu this evening was “Spaghetti alla chitarra con TARTUFFO”. Mamma mia, CHE BUONO! Il secondo was “Bresaola con rucola” which is always a treat, garnished with just a spritz of lemon juice and olive oil. What ever more could you ask for?

Day 4: Humilty

Did I mention that I think Handel was a rather sadistic guy? Brilliantly sadistic, but sadistic nonetheless! Day 4 brought “Ombre Pallide”, in which Alcina finds herself impotent to her powers: she cries out for the “haunting spirits, the night ministers of vengeance, and the blind cruel daughters” to all fly to her side and aid her in her desperate attempt to keep Ruggiero from fleeing her side. She is left feeling completely powerless and abandoned, not only by the man she loves, but also by all the magical forces she is normally able to summon. What follows is a haunting, perhaps paranoid, insistent aria of “pale shadows” in which Alcina cries out, “I know you HEAR me, you’re all around me, and yet you hide yourselves from me and remain deaf to my pleas.” It’s part pathetic, part heartbreaking, part haunting – and the very kind of aria Handel excels in!


How does he accomplish setting such a diverse spectrum of disturbed colors? By employing what may be most singers’ worst nightmare: CHROMATICS! He inches along, (‘millimeters’ along would actually be more accurate, if only that word existed), letting the orchestra and singer ooze through the scale in unexpected directions, swelling here and there in perfect unison. He has the orchestra balloon and wander and drift and heave to invoke what I hear as images of slinking serpents and flying bats and shadows howling all around her head, and she pursues them all in vain. Here is a woman who has only known power her whole life, who is experiencing powerlessness for the very first time. What a fabulous ride!

To say it’s a challenge, musically speaking, is an understatement. There are some vocal lines that he weaves which truly feel as if they were written for a violin or oboe in mind – not the human voice. If only we could work out a particular ‘fingering’ that made the phrase easier to manage! But we are left simply with this invisible instrument located somewhere in our throats, and must rely on the brain to fill in all the blanks! Again, it would be easier would he not have doubled the vocal line ONLY with the first violins playing in ‘perfect’ unison with the voice, and nothing else. One misstep, and you’re done.

Well, happily the first roadblock did not exist: this orchestra is playing so well, that any issues of pitch amongst themselves were simply not in play: they played it seamlessly and beautifully. So it was left to me. It was immediately apparent that in this particular setting of the church, and how the microphones were arranged, that I could not hear one sound from the violin section while I sang these famous unison lines, for they were playing a beautiful piano, and while singing, it was just covered to my ears. So, imagine being in Times Square at rush hour, standing at, let’s say 42nd and Broadway, completely naked. Utterly, wholly, entirely without clothing. And nowhere to hide. That is the precise sensation which washed over me during this recording session. I began to second-guess each half step, each sharp or flat, each little note, because I had no reassurance around me that I was singing correctly at ALL. I began that dreaded inner dialogue that can plague us singers (at least I hope it’s not only me!), where you are singing, and at the same time you’re speaking to yourself, “That was horrible … Ew! ... So out of tune there … Wait, you completely missed that F# … (and maybe the most brutal of all): The orchestra is going to think you are such a bad musician!”


Of course, because I have recorded a number of times, I know how it works, and you’re not really allowed to stop an expensive take because, “I think I suck.” You keep going, because perhaps they will have a few lines that went well on that take which they may need to plug in somewhere else, so you march on. But it’s quite a circus in the mind when you’re juggling chromatic scales, working to create the character, all the while scolding yourself in your head over and over! (And people think singers are stupid!!!)

Luckily, I’ve declared war on that inner game I used to play with myself. (But that’s a story for another time.) So I was able to slam the emergency brake on that unfriendly inner dialogue and get back into the game. And MUCH to my surprise, at the end of the first take, everyone said, “Wow – brava!” Even the producer! I tell you, I was shocked, and I thought, “Surely they are just trying to make me feel better!” What I learned was that usually it’s never as horrendous as we think it is, and even if it is, we must keep going, eh?

So, while the mood may have been good, etc, there was still work to do, and yes, I had to woodshed some of those nastier phrases, but they kept reassuring me that I was in tune – and I kept protesting, “but I can’t hear the violins!” In the end, somehow, it all came together – and it simply became a matter of trust. I trusted my preparation, I trusted their ears, I trusted that they were THERE, even if I couldn’t hear them. That leap of faith, that act of trusting, it simply felt GREAT.

So, 4 arias down, 2 to go: tomorrow is a light day with some missing recitatives, which gives me a chance to have some mental and vocal rest before our first concert on Saturday in Viterbo. I’m still astonished at the power of Handel’s music, at the depth of emotion he sculpts, the sheer beauty of his music, and how humbling it is to sing. Now I’m getting VERY eager to see how it all comes together!

Afterwards the cast of singers went for a pizza – but not just any pizza. This was an ultra-thin-as-paper, crust spread out over 2 dinner plates! The most enormous pizza you can imagine. As the waitress set it down, of course we all protested that we wouldn’t be able to eat it all – and certamente, we all did! I had the ‘primavera’ with mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and rucola: PARADISE!

Photos:
*The 2nd Violin partitura

*Andrea Perugi, the colorful and brilliant cembalo player (always with a wink in his eye!) who always makes me think of Supertramp!

*Davide Nava, the youthful and EXPRESSIVE bass player, both of these enormously talented boys have been on all the recordings I've sung with Alan. They're my baroque family!

Day 3: Marathon

That Handel! Boy, he must have had a slightly sadistic side to him, that guy. Day 3 brought the wonders of “Ah, mio cor”. Alcina has just discovered that her lover, Ruggiero has betrayed her and plans to flee her island, her power, and her love. It’s fascinating theatrically because the recitative that leads into this heart-wrenching, penetrating, disturbing aria, is quite fearsome, as she declares “Farò vendetta, io giuro!” (“I will have my revenge, I swear it!”) One would expect him to plunge us into one of his brilliant revenge arias of rapid-fire coloratura and flaming vocalizing; instead, he gives us a jagged, pointed chord structure, a painfully restrained tempo and relentless bass line, over which soars a broken hearted, collapsed woman singing, “My heart, you are betrayed; I loved you so, HOW can you leave me alone in such tears?” It aches, it throbs, it soars, it cries out – it’s the perfect realization of her pain and utter desolation.

But Handel is not satisfied with that. Oh no.

He is always thinking theatrically, and just as the end of the first section reaches its tragic conclusion, when most of us would have been satisfied with such an outpouring, he LAUNCHES us into “the B section”!!!! Alcina declares, “But wait – Alcina, what are you doing? You are a QUEEN! There is still time”, as she regains her sense of power and potency, “He will either return to you, or he will DIE.” Ah, yes, THERE she is! Here is the fire and the combustible might we’ve been yearning to see from her! No question about it, she is BACK and she will compel that revenge to emerge! We are left with no doubt by the end of the famed B part that she will be the victor. (“I am woman, and hear me roar!”)

But wait … not so fast. Without any return to an orchestral prelude, Handel heaves us right back to where we were, only quite worse off. Even after realizing she is a Queen, that she has power and might, the ache in her heart remains – and it must surely be so much worse, for she senses she may be, in fact, impotent to change it. She revisits the same heartache from earlier, only her suffering has greatly multiplied, sinking even deeper into her core.

What a master. What a craftsman Handel was. How wonderful that we can experience this torment, this desolation and eventual collapse which this man pulled from thin air, put down on paper, and has been brought to life by so many different women through the centuries! I find that utterly amazing. I also find it rather astonishing that a man could have such a grasp of the fragility, rage, despair and more that co-exist in some mystical communion in a woman’s heart; not just an understanding that would allow him to ‘relate’ to a woman, but with this aria he crawls up into the inner-workings of her mind and heart and actually, truly GETS it! Damn. Oh, right – I almost forget, all of this ‘comprehension’ is enveloped in just about the most beautiful piece of music ever written. Right.

Damn!

So, here I am; little ol’ girl from Kansas left to have a go at it this master’s music from another world, another time and place. I don’t think I’d be too out of line to say that even sopranos struggle with this aria, for it remains quite in the upper part of the voice for quite nearly the entire 9-minute scene, which means endurance is a real factor, and finding a way to sustain the intensity and emotion, never letting it sag, or become predictable of course is a challenge. To resort to another sport’s analogy: this one is the marathon. Especially when in a studio recording setting, because you have the luxury of working at it until you get it right. In this case, this 9-minute tune took nearly 2 hours.

We attacked the A section first – the first time through we hear her pain. I was really stiff the first take, because I was very concentrated on the vocal aspect of it, the technical challenges, etc, and it was FINE, but it didn’t have any of the emotion. Next time through the emotion was there, but the technical things went out the window! (See what I mean about pacing?) After another take and a few more corrections, we had it, but for some reason I still wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be with this masterpiece.

We had discussed going right to the da capo to get that down on tape as well, but I said, “Alan, can we just sing through the B section, and then see what happens?” Well, I affirmed my belief in always following your gut: the orchestra really got into it, I was on fire, and it launched me RIGHT into the cadenza for the da capo, and we let the tape run. After the red light turned off, telling us the stop button had been pushed, we all sort of held our breath, knowing we had got it!! (Nearly.) Finally all the emotion was there, the MOOD, the inspiration, the drama – I was feeling it, and I had let go of the technical worry.

You would think we would have then gone to dinner, but no – this is a recording, and there was still a lot of work to do. It took me a number of times to get the final cadenza to arrive at that great union of emotion and vocal precision (I was flat a lot!), and then we had different spots where one note was missing here or there, or the orchestra needed more time to find their groove, as it’s a very tricky piece for them. It was quite tiring, but we were all feeling it, and there was a real sense in the room that we WANTED to GET this, and I certainly hope we did. One thing that I really like about working with this producer is that he isn’t looking for the perfectly executed take, he is looking for things to be correct, but ONLY under the umbrella of being dramatically compelling and emotionally involved. Vocal perfection doesn’t interest me (although I’m always striving for something approaching that), but I want my voice to tell the story and be the vehicle for this woman’s emotion and the drama Handel was going for. I cannot believe that the thing that thrilled Handel was simple vocal perfection – I have to believe, by the way he wrote, that the thing that ULTIMATELY thrilled him, was the theatrical viability of beautiful singing.

And so I did my best. And it was amazing how charged up I felt after running this vocal marathon, draining my mind of all concentration and intention. It was a good day’s work. And while I profess to hating Handel for being so sadistic in writing such a difficult and demanding piece to sing, ya gotta love the guy, as well. Damn!

P.S. The dinner should have been SO much better than it was after a session like that, but alas, it was minestrone soup, sadly in need of some flavor – at the least, a little more salt, and turkey something or another. Very disappointing. I asked for a salad, knowing it was good for me, but secretly longing for another huge plate of that Truffle pasta from yesterday!

Photos:
*Views of beautiful passion fruit flowers, taken from a trellis on the road to the recording