Music Media Monthly

The Mikado. Conducted by Brian Castles-Onion; directed by Stuart Maunder. Opera Australia (56014), 2011. 146 minutes. $29.99.

Welcome to Titipu! Arguably the most celebrated of the Savoy Operas, The Mikado’s witty text and memorable tunes are done justice with this revival production of a 1980s staging by Christopher Renshaw. The brazenly colorful characters weave and leap around (and often jump in and out of) oversized oriental pottery. Actor and guest artist Mitchell Butel was drafted for this production to play Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner, and he will have you under his spell before you can say Yum-Yum. In his customized enhancements to Ko-Ko’s Little List, he seamlessly inserts quips and jabs at current events in Australia and beyond. This show is a good time, and I guarantee you’ll experience a LOL or two.

The Rake’s Progress. Conducted by Vladimir Jurowski; directed by John Cox; set design by David Hockney. Opus Arte (1062D), 2010. 140 minutes. $29.99.

This is an absolutely enchanting and gorgeous revival production of The Rake’s Progress, which had its Glyndebourne premiere in 1975. Designer David Hockney based the set on an 18^th-century series of paintings by William Hogarth that, when viewed by Stravinsky, struck the composer with the idea for the show. Hockney re-imagines Hogarth’s paintings as modern cartoon characters, and his use of cross-hatching saturates the costumes and all the set and the stage. In this sixth revival of the collaboration between Hockney and director John Cox, the assembled cast is strong in their stage presence as well as their singing. Finn Topi Lehtipuu sings beautifully the unreasonably difficult lines of Tom Rakewell, and Miah Persson performs the role of Anne Trulove with tenacity and grace. Highly recommended.

Nina.  Conducted by Adam Fischer. Arthaus (100367), 2002. 120 minutes. $29.99.

Composer Giovanni Paisiello was Rossini’s senior, and though he enjoyed some popularity during his lifetime, his operas have been staged far less frequently since the mid-19^th century. The 1790 revision of Nina that we see on this disc is billed as an opera buffa in two acts, and it is at the very least an 18^th-century sentimental comedy with simple yet beautiful melodies. Recorded live at the Zurich Opera in 2002, this revival of Nina reflects a production by Cesare Lievi that was staged just a few years earlier. The beloved mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli gives an effective and committed performance as a madwoman, with expertly-done fioritura and just a smidgen of over-acting. Jonas Kaufmann’s acting and singing are both splendid. The disc also includes a 45-minute bonus documentary that explores Paisiello as “A Forgotten Genius,” in which director Cesare Lievi, conductor Adam Fischer, and Neapolitan musicologist, composer, and director Roberto de Simone are all interviewed.

– Anne Shelley

A Concert for New York. Conducted by Alan Gilbert. Accentus Music (20241), 2011. 112 minutes. $24.99.

This memorial concert given by the New York Philharmonic and the New York Choral Artists marked the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Organizers described the concert as a gift to the city, and had originally planned to use Central Park as the venue. Politics and logistics interfered, however, and the event was moved to the Philharmonic’s home, Avery Fisher Hall. Planning for the concert was so intense that then-executive director Zarin Mehta had decided to cancel the orchestra’s popular concerts in the parks over the summer. That move also saved the cash-strapped organization enough money to guarantee a continuation of the parks series into 2013.

This is a captivating and emotional performance of Mahler’s mammoth “Resurrection” Symphony, but not only for the invited first responders, survivors, and other dignitaries in the seats of Avery Fisher. A large screen and speakers set up on Lincoln Center Plaza broadcast the concert to a standing-room only crowd that filled the plaza and spilled onto adjacent walkways. The concert was also broadcast live on the radio. The 90-minute piece gives us the opportunity to watch director Alan Gilbert’s five o’clock shadow grow before our very eyes. Whether stately, furious, delicate, mysterious, or mad, Gilbert plays whatever character is required of him with confidence and grace. The ensembles, too, have lots of bite and lots of tenderness. The group manages to make the performance intensely personal, and by the end, I felt like a bonafide New Yorker. Recommended.

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. Bel Air Classiques (BAC067), 2011. 138 minutes. $29.99.

This opera is one of several collaborations between Kurt Weill and German librettist Bertolt Brecht, and it never quite got the traction that their most highly-regarded work, Weill’s Threepenny Opera, has enjoyed around the globe. Weill based this political satire on greed, industrialization, and overindulgence in the late 1920s, and some of his points fit right in with today’s New Normal, Wall Street documentaries, and Occupy movements. The Teatro Real Madrid produced the show in English, and while the original translation is forty years old and is often performed, I found myself longing to hear Mahagonny in German. Catalan theater company La Fura dels Baus represents Mahagonny—a city where the only offense is to have no money—as a literal trash heap. Except for a couple of lengthy and haunting a cappella chorales, the orchestra plows through their discordant score almost mechanically, matching the vivid horror of the soulless actions and desolate surroundings on the stage. There are several other video recordings of Mahagonny available with more impressive casts, but the visual pull of this production is stunning, disturbing, and strong.

George London: Between Gods and Demons. A film by Marita Stocker. Arthaus Musik (101473), 2011. 155 minutes. $24.99.

American bass-baritone George London, a post-war giant of the stage, sang alongside Renata Tebaldi, Birgit Nilsson, and Maria Callas. He was the first non-Russian to sing Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi Theater, and the first American to sing the Dutchman in Bayreuth. In the video, testimonies to London’s innate talent and his work ethic are as numerous as comments about his strong vocal presence, musicianship, and his linguistic abilities. He also had his share of idiosyncrasies as a performer, as he insisted on doing his own makeup and finding the perfect wig when the one provided to him would just not do. Paralysis of the vocal cords ended London’s singing career tragically early, so in the second half of his career he focused on administration and teaching. “Every singer who has had an important career is duty-bound to pass on the artistry he has amassed,” London says in the video, in translation. The documentary shows a wealth of archival clips from productions of Otello, The Flying Dutchman, Faust, and Tosca, and there is extensive bonus footage of various opera scenes in costume, spirituals, musicals, lied, and a 1962 TV performance from the Festival of Performing Arts.

– Anne Shelley

Goya. Conducted by Emmanuel Villaume; directed by Kasper Bech Holten. Arthaus Musik (101576), 2004. 101 minutes. $29.99.

Gian Carlo Menotti was a composer open to new avenues for delivering performances; his Old Man and the Thief was one of the first operas written for the radio, and Amahl and the Night Visitors was the first opera composed with a television broadcast in mind. Menotti would have been 100 this year, and releasing the DVD world premiere recording of Goya seems like an appropriate way to celebrate.

One of his many operas, a genre to which Menotti contributed greatly in the 20^th century, Goya came about when Plácido Domingo prompted the composer to write an opera about the life of Spanish artist Francisco Goya, whom Domingo greatly admires. Musically, Goya is standard Menotti, with rich, memorable melodies and dense writing. At the 1986 premiere, Domingo performed the title role, as he does on this 2004 performance. The initial production at the Kennedy Center by the Washington Opera was lavish, with costs estimated around $1 million. The U.S. Secretary of State, some senators, and the Queen of Spain were in attendance.

Here, however, the video quality is disappointing, with heavily-tinted colors and questionable editing. Much kitschiness occurs during the Act I Intermezzo, as video clips that are over-edited with offensive brightness and sepia tones run in slow motion throughout the interlude. Domingo is a treat as always, but while Michelle Breedt as the Duchess is a good vocal complement for him, the mezzo is just a little too uptight and mechanical to be as believably coy and cunning as her character requires.

Un Ballo in Maschera. Conducted by Sir Georg Solti; directed by John Schlesinger. Arthaus Musik (107271), 1990. 145 minutes. $29.99.

Un ballo in maschera had a complicated evolution. Neapolitan and Roman censors were displeased with some political overtones in Verdi’s original version (known as Gustavo III) so many changes were made to character names and titles, geographic settings, and the title. Two years, one lawsuit, and one real-life assassination attempt of Napoleon III later, Un ballo in maschera received a successful premiere in Rome in 1859.

Herbert von Karajan—who had enjoyed great success with Verdi operas since taking over as the Salzburg Festival’s Artistic Director in 1957—was supposed to conduct the Festival’s 1989 production of Ballo. He and the English film director John Schlesinger decided to stage the opera as Verdi had originally intended, telling the story of the assassination of Swedish King Gustavus III instead of Count of Warwick Riccardo in colonial Boston. Karajan died soon after stage rehearsals began, however, and Sir George Solti stepped up to the plate. This 1990 footage was broadcast live on Austrian Television as a revival run with the same cast and conductor as in 1989. Plácido Domingo is stunning and well-supported by the rest of the cast.

– Anne Shelley

Medea in Corinto. Conducted by Ivor Bolton; directed by Hans Neuenfels. Arthaus Musik (101578), 2011. 199 minutes. $39.99.

Generically, the Medea myth deals with morality, paying special attention to both the emotionally haggard Medea as well as the Corinthian society that no longer wants her. But, like many stories, this one is open to interpretation; this column looked at contemporary composer Aribert Reimann’s account of Medea earlier this year; Samuel Barber wrote a Medea ballet, and Maria Callas played the title role in Cherubini’s popular Medée. In this 2010 production from the Bayerische Staatsoper, director Hans Neuenfels threads a ghastly theme of fear. A lot of people die, especially when King Creonte is on stage, and through senseless and nearly relentless bloodshed Neuenfels seems to convey his own belief that Corinth is corrupt, its king is evil, and its citizens live in perpetual fear. This predominantly bel canto opera is rarely performed and has never before been released on video. With its virtuosic orchestral writing and emphasis on ensemble writing, Medea in Corinto was one of most popular operas in Italy in the early 19^th century. Neuenfels—often controversial yet iconic for his boundary-pushing staging and direction—makes his debut at this house with this production.

Nadja Micheal, who is as intense and serious during the bonus interview as she is on stage, reveals strategies for how she prepares for shows, including her title role here. What are her secrets to success? On the day of a performance, Michael wakes in a hotel room that she booked to escape her two children, reads the newspaper, eats the biggest hamburger she can find, and about three hours before the performance, she orders a large ice cream. Fueled on dairy and red meat, she delivers a luscious, almost mezzo-like tone along with her riveting stage presence. Another notable performance is that of tenor Ramón Vargas, who proves he is up to the challenge of the emotionally taxing role of Giasone. This is a very moving production.

The Lady and the Fool; Pineapple Poll. Choreographed by John Cranko. ICA Classics (ICAD 5040), 2011. 89 minutes. $24.99.

The combination of a sentimental satire and a flighty frolic makes for a very balanced disc. These charming studio performances of Pineapple Poll and The Lady and the Fool show off John Cranko’s early choreography. Both ballets were created for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, which would later become the Royal Ballet, and this release from ICA Classics is their premiere on DVD. (The BBC originally telecast both productions in 1959.) The Lady and the Fool is mostly made up of adaptations of music by Giuseppe Verdi; at once charming and callous, the ballet pokes big fun at bourgeois culture. Svetlana Beriosova—once the prima ballerina for Sadler’s Wells—brings her characteristic grace and mystery to the lead role. The mood shifts drastically as you hop on board the H.M.S. Hot Cross Bun in Pineapple Poll. Based on W.S. Gilbert’s The Bumboat Woman’s Story, Pineapple Poll was the first collaboration between Cranko and conductor Sir Charles Mackerras. The fact that Sir Sullivan’s music had fallen out of copyright in 1950 made it ripe for arrangement, and Mackerras took advantage of the opportunity. He has described the show as “a patchwork of tunes” from the Savoy Operas: Pirates, Mikado, Patience, Ruddigore, and Pinafore are only about half the operettas that Mackerras references. Highly recommended.

Europa Konzert from Lisbon. Pierre Boulez, conductor; Maria João Pires, piano. EuroArts (2020218), 2004. 120 minutes. $9.99.

Pierre Boulez leads the Berliner Philharmoniker in this 2003 performance. The annual Europa Konzert, which commemorates the 1882 founding of the orchestra, is held in a different city each year. Lisbon hosted the concert for this performance, opening up a breathtaking 16^th-century monastery built during the city’s maritime boom days. The building even has UNESCO’s stamp of approval, having been named a World Heritage Site in 1987. The combination of artists for this program is natural, as Pires has focused on Mozart throughout her career and Boulez is well regarded for his Bartók interpretations in concert and on disc.

The concert kicks off with the spritely orchestral version of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, which lacks a couple movements from the original piano suite. Each movement is dedicated to a friend of Ravel’s who did not survive World War I. The double reed players really step up to the plate for their spotlights, and the frequent profile shots of the principal oboist reveal some bonus sideburn awesomeness. Pires’s fingers dance through the Mozart concerto in a spectacular show. And whether Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra demands a low brass smear or asks the ensemble to wail a tender lament, Boulez soldiers on, ever professional, stoic, and jowly. Debussy’s Fêtes is presented as a delightful encore. The videography is sharp and colorful, and reveals many valuable physical perspectives of the space, though the frequency with which frames shift is a little spastic for me. I think you’ll enjoy this disc.

– Anne Shelley

UNIKO. Directed and edited by Chris Kurt Weisz; produced by Bernhard Fleischer. C Major (707108), 2011. 82 minutes. $24.99.

If Finnish folk artist Kimmo Pohjonen wanted to avoid a career as an accordionist, the guy honestly never had a chance. Pohjonen received his first button accordion from his father, who was an accomplished player himself and taught his son how to play. Pohjonen also spent a good chunk of his upbringing jamming with his village’s accordion club. Pohjonen’s works—with their multidimensional presentations of sound, light, and projected images—are probably better described as projects than as opuses. While Pohjonen’s tours often feature just him, his accordion, and his admirable mohawk, many of his projects involve other musicians and his roster of collaborators is long and varied. Here we see Pohjonen, percussionist/co-composer Samuli Kosminen, and the ever-adventuresome Kronos Quartet perform the world premiere of UNIKO at the 2004 Helsinki Festival. (An audio recording of this performance was released earlier this year through Ondine [ODE11852]).

Whatever genre boundaries you might want to place on this piece, the music is going to challenge your decision. Commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, UNIKO is a suite for accordion, voice, string quartet, and sampler that includes seven MIDI-tastic movements. The term “uniko” is related to dreaming, a theme that fits this piece well from beginning to end. A serene opening that evokes a sense of a seascape evolves through Balkan-sounding folk melodies, minimalist repetition, frantic rhythms, and Pohjonen’s impressive throat singing. The combination of the Quartet’s acoustic accompaniment and the composers’ electric instrumentation is so seamless that it sounds like a natural union rather than the dichotomy I had anticipated. This is a really engaging and emotional piece that challenges cultural and musical conventions. Highly recommended.

Paganini’s Daemon: A Most Enduring Legend. A film by Christopher Nupen. Allegro Films (A12CND), 2011. 79 minutes. $29.99.

Christopher Nupen—a veteran music television programmer and producer—began cultivating his reputation in the 1960s with the BBC and his own company, Allegro Films. In this DVD, Nupen tackles the story of the sordid and polarizing virtuoso Niccolo Paganini, the Italian violinist and composer known for his skilled performances. The devil touched many parts of Paganini’s life, as the masterful artist suffered from persistent illness, along with a gambling problem and a socially unhealthy appreciation of women. Paganini was an expert self-promoter as he began to perform outside Italy. He became unimaginably wealthy for a performer, at times charging twice the normal ticket prices for shows in London and Paris and regularly selling out.

Cameraman David Findlay has shot almost all of Nupen’s films, and the flow of the edited video and constant transitions of still images help move the story along. Dozens of sketches, silhouettes, and oil paintings—provided by the Paganini Institute in Genoa—are shown throughout the film. The illustrations more often place the angular Paganini in skewed and awkward positions than they depict him as an erect and triumphant stage performer. The uncomfortable images are an astounding contrast to the consonant and virtuosic compositions of Paganini that are played throughout the film by Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer. In the film, most accounts of Paganini’s musical prowess and odd behavior are drawn from his correspondence and reviews from critics. The video quotes luminaries like Heine, Thomas Moore, and Goethe, who had the chance to attend Paganini’s performances and to marvel at his brilliance. Praise is heard from Schumann, Schubert, and Liszt. But there are no live interviews with scholars, so we are subjected mostly to Nupen’s artistic filter, which provides an entertaining documentary that is aurally and visually stimulating.

– Anne Shelley

Manfred. Directed by Johannes Deutsch; conducted by Andrey Boreyko; featuring the Düsseldorf Symphony. Arthaus (101575), 2010. 89 minutes. $24.99.

Manfred is a dramatic poem in three parts, originally written by your favorite eccentric and mine: Lord Byron, who was kind of a big deal in early-nineteenth-century Germany. Robert Schumann first came into contact with Byron’s poem after his father published the first German editions of Byron’s works. Though he first read Manfred during his brief, silly stint as a law student, it wasn’t until 1848–well after things had begun to go south in the mental stability department–that Schumann completed the overture. The premiere performance of Manfred was conducted by Franz Liszt in 1852. Though the overture is often performed, Manfred is rarely offered in its entirety. Ten characters in total take us through a dialogue between Manfred–a powerful yet guilt-ridden Count–and a hunter, an Abbot, and seven spirits who refuse to put the nobleman out of his misery. This live production is simultaneously a visual trip and an aural feast. Director Johannes Deutsch created the performance’s visual components based on the open, domed structure of the hall, which was originally a planetarium. Projections of mountains and extreme facial close-ups are superimposed upon one another on a screen suspended above the orchestra, from whom I wouldn’t have minded a little more overall crispness and finesse, though the group skillfully and empathetically matches Manfred’s spastic emotional transitions. By fusing the minds of a disturbed composer, a passionate poet, and a creative director, this production creates a very unique experience that I do recommend you try for yourself.

Leonard Bernstein Conducts Shostakovich. Leonard Bernstein with the London Symphony Orchestra. EuroArts (3085318), 1967 [2011]. 54 minutes. $19.99.

At the same time that this grainy, rustic footage was shot of Bernstein guiding the LSO through Shostakovich’s Stalin-pleasing masterwork, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was being crafted just down the road. Plucked from the BBC archives, this disc was released as part of the classic archive series featuring EMI, Medici Arts, and EuroArts recordings. The audio quality surpasses that of the video for sure, but there are some great extended shots of Bernstein and the footage of the players is edited pretty seamlessly. There is brief bonus footage of Bernstein rehearsing the LSO on the Shostakovich. The rehearsal footage is partially dubbed over with comments by Bernstein. If you’re not already, you’ll want to be aware of another DVD released about five years ago in which Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic perform Shostakovich 5 in Japan in 1979. Bernstein’s two audio recordings of this work with the New York Phil sandwich this LSO concert by about ten years on either side. There is fantastic energy on this disc–the finale is such a fast ride that I’m still adjusting my hair!

Arrau and Brahms: The Two Romantics. Claudio Arrau. EuroArts (2058658), 1988 [2011]. 110 minutes. $28.98.

Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau was born in 1903, which means this 1988 recording finds him well past the autumn of his life. Entirely on the dime of the Chilean government, he moved to Germany at the age of nine to study with a student of Liszt, a composer whose music Arrau performed to positive reception throughout his career. Arrau’s teacher was as much Brahms-averse as he was pro-Liszt, so it was not until after his mentor’s death that Arrau began programming Brahms’s works. In this reissue of a 1988 release, we are treated to a seasoned Arrau’s interpretation of two massive romantic pieces. Recorded live at Teatro Municipal, Santiago, Chile in May 1984, this footage documents Arrau’s first visit to Chile after a seventeen-year hiatus. (This video was produced and directed by Peter Rosen, who has produced and directed a lot of videos about important people. Since he’s not here to name-drop, I’ll do it for him: Bernstein, Midori, Sills, and Sondheim are just a few of his documentary subjects.) Martin Bookspan’s sportscaster-like commentary supplements the video’s introduction and closing, along with some added-value segments that cover topics from Arrau’s precociousness as a child to that whole Brahms-and-Clara thing. The video editing is marvelous, with creative and varied shots and smooth, flowing transitions between them. Arrau plays as romantically as one could hope. The concerto performance is followed by footage of the ecstatic, hanky-waving audience’s twelve-minute standing ovation, as well as an impromptu backstage interview with Arrau and conductor Juan Pablo Izquierdo. A very emotional, historic performance.

– Anne Shelley

Billy Budd. Conducted by Mark Elder; directed by Michael Grandage. Opus Arte (1051D), 2011. 200 minutes.

Originally an unfinished, fact-based Herman Melville novella, Billy Budd tells the story of a young sailor who was hanged based on a false accusation of mutiny. Benjamin Britten‘s opera takes place aboard a Royal Navy ship during the Napoleonic Wars. It’s so beautiful, yet so ugly, and unarguably disturbing. This 2010 staging of Billy Budd was the first-ever at Glyndebourne. The rustic, convincing set boasts a deck area three stories high, and the shadows that creep about the ship’s innards support the officers’ scheming and paranoid conversations happening below deck. Hearing only male voices for three hours over two acts gives the show a texture that’s rough, dark, and reflects the incivility of the plot. The role of Master-at-Arms John Claggart is entirely owned by Canadian bass Philip Ens as an intense, 100% bad guy, and Jacques Imbrailo sings Billy Budd with such innocence and virtue that your heart aches all the more for the wronged title character. Camera shots are strategically placed and craftily edited such that the viewer gets a very cinematic experience. This production is outstanding. Go get your own copy, because you sure can’t have mine.

Joaquín Achúcarro. Conducted by Simon Rattle. EuroArts (2058808), 2011. 102 minutes.

Along with a front row seat at an intimate and expertly-played recital, this disc treats us to a really delicious combination of artists. With Sir Simon Rattle at the helm, the Berlin Philharmonic joins Spanish pianist Joaquín Achúcarro on one of this disc’s performances: a heartfelt, sensitive playing of Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Garden of Spain in Berlin. This concert is followed by a public “Falla and Friends” recital of Spanish-inspired piano music held at Madrid’s Teatro Real. Since 1959, Achúcarro has performed in over sixty countries with 200 orchestras and 350 conductors. Achúcarro’s playing is so technically pure, yet it reflects his sincere and engaged physical presence; he is visibly moved at the end of the Berlin concert. The 78-year-old gentleman has an unassuming way about him that draws the viewer’s focus away from him and into whatever he is playing. The performances on this disc are lovely and not to be missed.

Pique Dame: The Queen of Spades. Conducted by Michael Boder; directed by Gilbert Deflo. Opus Arte (1050D), 2011. 180 minutes.

Written in Florence in forty-four days, Pique Dame brings us talent and influence beyond that of Tchaikovsky, for his brother Modest adapted the libretto from a Pushkin short story. The playfully mysterious theme that kicks off the overture sets us up for one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular operas, performed here by a distinctly non-Russian cast. Barcelona’s magnificent Liceu hosted this production of Pique Dame on June 21, 2010. Visually, the show is stunning; the grandiose sets and the convincing period dress are shown off well by frequent wide camera shots. On the DVD version, I noticed that the audio is dull and tinny and that the orchestra occasionally overpowers the enormous and colorfully-garbed company; perhaps Blu-ray would be a better choice here. American Emily Magee performs Lisa’s angsty aria “Utzh polnoch blizitsya” with an effective heaviness. As Hermann, Misha Didyk sings expressively and is in marvelous voice but makes me ever so thankful for subtitles (for his first love-infused aria, he sings that all he wants to do is embrace his lover, but to look at him you’d think he was orating about a bad experience with harsh toilet paper). Act III alone is worth getting the entire disc, as Hermann’s gambling addiction and his obsessive troubles with the Countess culminate in ghost sightings and madness. In one of his final arias, Hermann assures us: life is nothing but a game, and only death is real.

– Anne Shelley

Aaron Copland: Fanfare for America. A film by Andreas Skipis. Arthaus Musik (101573), 2011. 60 minutes.

My annual acknowledgement of my country’s independence typically involves spending time with flame-grilled indulgences and things that explode. That’s all good and caloric, but this year I decided to try something different: spending time learning more about one of America’s most celebrated composers. This disc is a reissue of the 2001 television documentary that provides a whirlwind survey of Aaron Copland’s life, with much of the juicy bits coming from interviews with Copland biographer Howard Pollack. We learn that Copland had a carefree, middleclass childhood in Brooklyn and that he traveled to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger; he also traveled throughout Europe and was exposed to other composers both personally (Stravinsky) and musically (Mahler). There is some very special footage here, of Bernstein conducting “Lincoln Portrait” and of Copland conducting a performance of his clarinet concerto featuring Benny Goodman. Copland himself is interviewed several times; in one clip, he speaks about being approached by Mr. Durand after performing one of his early piano works. The famed French publisher pitched a low-ball offer to the budding composer, who accepted and signed away all his rights to the work for under $50. Throughout the documentary, interviewees espouse Copland’s temperance and modesty, and likewise the film itself is mellow and undramatic to the point of being disengaging—it has a cinematic presentation whose flow is interrupted by enjoyable but lengthy musical interludes. The narration is in German, and subtitles are provided in several languages. As might be expected from a made-for-TV documentary, the content is aimed at a very general audience, making this film a potentially good fit for a humanities curriculum.

Diabelli, Handel, and Goldberg Variations. Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, András Schiff. EuroArts (2066468), 2011. 170 minutes.

If good things really do come in threes, then there’s some kind of trinity going on here. From three themes, three treasured composers, and three distinguished artists, this disc brings us three engaging hours of 88 variations. As someone whose greatest musical wish is to proficiently play the piano, these guys have left me stupefied; I think students of the keyboard will be humbled and motivated by these three performances. And even though the performances were given in different venues in different years, all the film comes from the same production company so there is continuity in the quality of the audio and video.

András Schiff, famous for his interpretations of Bach on the modern piano, is shown here in a live 1990 performance of the Goldberg Variations at Germany’s Reitstadel Kulturhaus. One of Schiff’s earliest successes was his 1982 studio recording of the Goldberg, which was remastered and re-released in 2006. He has also made a live audio recording of this work, recorded in 2001 in Switzerland. The recorded output of this Hungarian artist is impressive and goes beyond Bach—he’s released in entirety the Mozart piano concertos and sonatas, Beethoven concertos, and the Schubert solo sonatas.

Daniel Barenboim, an Argentinean perhaps known more widely today for his work as a conductor than a pianist, spent fifteen years in front of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During most of the 1990s, his work as director of the Berlin Staatsoper included a wide repertory but concentrated on German opera. This footage of his performance of the Diabelli Variations in Munich (1991) shows off his great sensitivity and flexibility. While the recording of Schiff’s performance shows a full house of respectful attendees in the shadows, Barenboim plays to empty seats, giving the DVD viewer the feeling of a private concert.

Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman rounds out the video with his 1987 performance of Brahms’s Handel Variations. Brahms, who owned a first edition of Handel’s keyboard suite in B-flat major (HWV 434), extracted the theme from the work’s final aria, added twenty-five variations and a fugue, and gifted his new masterpiece to Clara Schumann in celebration of her forty-second birthday. Bronfman gets a little excited in the final fugue, losing some of his discipline and playing with more weight than he needs to, but overall it’s clear he’s mastered this piece that Clara herself admitted was too challenging for her.

– Anne Shelley

Cyrano de Bergerac. Conducted by Patrick Fournillier; directed for stage by Michal Znaniecki. Naxos, 2011. Available in DVD (2110270) and Blu-ray (NBD0005) versions. 141 minutes. $39.99.

Franco Alfano composed around a dozen operas, only half of which were ever completed or published. Based on Edmond Rostand’s well-known drama of the same name (a film adaptation of this work earned an Oscar nomination in 1990), Cyrano de Bergerac was not Alfano’s first opera, nor is it his primary claim to fame. Alfano’s first contract with the publisher Ricordi, in 1898, was to compose the opera La fonte di Enschir, and ended in some disappointment. But after their success together on the very Puccini-esque Risurrezione and after Puccini’s death in 1924 left Ricordi with an incomplete copy of Turandot, Alfano was chosen to finish the work. Cyrano’s Rome and Paris premieres came in 1936, and it was finally performed at La Scala in 1954, just months before the composer’s death.

This live performance was filmed at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia in February 2007. Conductor Fournillier—a Massenet champion—was well-chosen for his role, and stage director Znaniecki gives us simple, yet provocative backdrops for the four short acts. Domingo headlines the production; he had first played Cyrano, his 121^st role, at the Met two years prior. Swashbuckling and almost spry, the lauded tenor looks and sounds nothing close to his age. In fact, his focused, powerful presence makes his stage companions seem like physical and vocal whippersnappers, though American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, with her full, effortless tone, does complement Domingo well. Here, the duet “Sens-tu mon âme un peu dans cette ombre qui monte?” between Domingo and Radvanovsky that closes Act II is exquisitely beautiful; its soaring, climactic lines are infused with Puccini. Especially considering the leads, this lovely show is not to be missed.

Theodora. Conducted by Ivor Bolton; directed for stage by Christof Loy. C Major, 2009. Available in DVD (705708) and Blu-ray (705804) formats. 189 minutes. $39.99.

This version of Theodora was presented at the 2009 Salzburg Festival as a Handel-anniversary-year highlight. Unlike Peter Sellars’ 1996 staging at Glyndebourne, Loy takes a more conservative approach to a modern interpretation. The chorus appears in typical dress black attire and a tiered platform provides some visual relief and staging options for the otherwise vast and barren stage. The video was directed by the versatile Austrian Hannes Rossacher, who produced for TV Elvis in Las Vegas and Schönberg’s Moses und Aaron in the same year. Stage director Christof Loy, producer of several Handel operas and well-known for his staging of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera House in 2002, succeeded in his goals of avoiding implications of a narrative and of conveying emptiness.

Handel’s penultimate oratorio was originally a flop, probably because it consists mainly of contemplative theological musings instead of theatrics. The music is spectacular—the chorus had me at “blessing” yet they continue with an addictive brightness that carries over from the sinful and joyous numbers to the solemn and repentant. Though countertenor Bejun Mehta continues to impress me with his unique tone, his runs sound a little stiff and he makes some interesting choices with elongated consonants. As Theodora, the lovely Christine Schäfer shows us why it’s valuable to have this oratorio presented in a semi-staged environment—her journey to martyrdom is an emotional one and she drags us with her every step of the way. This production is well-sung, and recommended.

The Giacomo Variations. Written and directed by Michael Sturminger. Arthaus Musik DVD (101570), 2011. 173 minutes. $19.99.

Giacomo Casanova was many things, and behind the womanizing talents with which his name is now synonymous he veiled his roles as violinist, escaped prisoner, military officer, and chum of the powerful and influential —Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte among them. Aside from his unabashed promiscuity, he’s probably best known for the 1790 memoir that he composed while serving as a mentally captive Bohemian librarian in the Castle of Dux. He was also weird, kind of like this DVD.

This staged concert unsuccessfully fuses the work of Mozart, Da Ponte, and Casanova, an odd, three-way marriage composed of the versatile John Malkovich’s recitations of selections from Casanova’s memoir, while he is periodically interrupted by highly sexualized excerpts from Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Le Nozze de Figaro. A pair of singers and a pair of actors lead us through flashbacks of Casanova’s life and all the hearts he touched and shattered.

The disc includes thirty minutes of supplementary content: interviews with the writer, musical director, and cast, and rehearsals of musical and textual readings that reveal Malkovich as uncomfortable and self-conscious in his first public singing in thirty years. As for the show itself, the staging looks cheap, the audio is imbalanced, and Malkovich’s performance is flat and unengaged. Despite several entertaining moments, this concoction falls short in its quest to satisfy opera and theatre lovers alike.

– Anne Shelley

Serse. Conducted by Christophe Rousset; directed for stage by Michael Hampe. EuroArts DVD (2053798), 2011. 160 minutes. $24.99.

Handel composed Serse just before he gave up writing operas altogether. Though it is now considered one of his finest operas and the greatest of his late period, Serse initially ran for only five performances, mostly because Handel gambled and lost. Technically opera seria—but based on a comic Venetian libretto and treated as comedic here—the opera’s blending of tragedy and humor confused the public. Handel also strayed from the much-expected da capo aria form and instead hacked each aria down to a single movement.

Serse is a very popular opera but only a couple of video productions are currently available. This disc is a reissue of a live June 2000 production by the Semperoper in Dresden, originally released on video in 2005. The role of Serse—originally written for castrato—is played handily by Paula Rasmussen; she delivers an exceptionally lyric “Ombra mai fu.” Despite some slight challenges with flexibility and pitch, Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian’s portrayal of Romilda makes a vocally rich and convincing case for Atalanta (sung by Sandrine Piau, the “queen of baroque opera”) to stay away from their mutual potential lover in “Se l’idol mio rapir mi vuoi.” Conductor Christophe Rousset, an accomplished harpsichordist and baroque specialist who founded Les Talens Lyriques (the period ensemble heard on this disc), plays continuo and was a natural choice for conductor.

Aleksis Kivi. Conducted by Mikko Franck. Ondine DVD (4009), 2011. 113 minutes. $29.99.

This opera and its libretto—which chronicle the life of Finland’s national author from whom the opera draws its name—were written by the versatile and prolific Einojuhani Rautavaara, who incorporates into the opera several of Kivi’s poems and his favorite drinking song. Kivi, who died at age 38, is credited with writing the first significant published works in the Finnish language, though attacks by literary critics drove him to depression and madness, followed somewhat predictably by poverty and suicide. In Act III, as Kivi turns to liquor for comfort during a hallucination, he and a men’s chorus of mental patients engage in a call and response of decent one-liners translated as “I sacrifice my life to you, o eternal elixir” and “The world may tumble, as long as there’s beer.”

As early as his teenage years, Rautavaara had considered Kivi as an ideal subject for an opera. It was not until much later in his life, however, that Finnish baritone and former director of the Finnish National Opera Jorma Hynninen approached Rautavaara about composing the opera. Aleksis Kivi premiered in 1997, but this 2011 DVD release is in honor of Hynninen’s 70^th birthday, and in this production Hynninen plays the role of Kivi. (If you’re wondering how Rautavaara pulls off this casting—since Kivi died so young—he doesn’t, really. Act I is a flashback, Act II shows Kivi in maturity, and Act III only has a pinky toe inside reality.)

In this nationalistic opera, Rautavaara combines elements of serialism with tonal harmony, and his affinity for mysticism is apparent in the setting of the primeval forest in which dwell mythical representations of the collective subconscious. Rautavaara gives Kivi’s real-life arch-nemesis August Ahlquist no musical voice, and—as he did with Kivi’s part—the composer includes much of Ahlquist’s own writings in the villain’s speaking part. It’s a very dark show with a slow-moving plot and awkward staging, but the vocal lines are lovely and the performances solid.

L’Amour des Trois Oranges. Conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. Arthaus Musik DVD (107241), 2011. 146 minutes. $29.99.

The last twenty years have seen a reappraisal of Prokofiev’s output beyond Peter and the Wolf and Romeo and Juliet—we have conductors Rostropovich and Gergiev to thank for this. One of Prokofiev’s earlier works and his third opera, The Love for Three Oranges was commissioned by the Chicago Opera while Prokofiev was living, composing, and performing in New York. (The March is the best-known section of this avant-garde, essentially aria-less work.) Though he almost died from illness while putting together the opera, he completed it in time for rehearsals to begin on schedule. The work’s premiere was delayed due to the death of the Chicago Opera Association’s director in 1919, but in 1921 Prokofiev and the company had resolved some outstanding financial issues and the work was first-performed with the composer as conductor. Prokofiev adapted his libretto from a French play, and as the premiere was sung in French, so is this performance.

This elaborate production could be pulled off by only the alpha-est of Alpha Squads. Conductor Cambreling is a 20^th-century specialist, and stage director Gilbert Deflo is experienced in producing commedia dell’arte, an Italian form of which The Love for Three Oranges bears elements. Deflo takes advantage of the space allotted at the Opéra Bastille by spreading out the chorus and allowing room for oranges five feet in diameter, fireworks, and characters who juggle, fly, and eat fire. The performances in this 2005 production are very strong, the most notable among them that of Victor van Halem as a twelve-foot-tall cook. The disc includes a 30-minute bonus feature with scene clips and interviews with the cast and production staff. Highly recommended.

– Anne Shelley