Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Henry VIII's fifth wife Catherine Howard, whose brief marriage ended on the block at the Tower of London when she was not yet 20 years old.
And now, the lineup for July 28, with opera very much in our sites. And it was the anniversary of the execution of Thomas Cromwell by order of Henry VIII of England, who also married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day (1540); the execution by guillotine of Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, architects of the Terror (1794); the certification of the 14thAmendment to the United States Constitution, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law (1868); and the discovery of the Sutton Hoo helmet (1939).
Antonio Salieri, Tarare (Aparte 2019)
Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
- Ouverture, Laisse-moi, Calpigi
- Dans les plus beaux lieux d'Asie
- Je Suis Heureux
These consecutive tracks constitute the first quarter hour of the principal action of thegreatest hit of Salieri's career, over which he produced than three dozen operas for such prestigious showcases as Versailles, Schloss Schönbrunn and other top Viennese locales, and the principal houses of Munich, Venice, Rome, and Milan (his L'Europa Risconosciuta was the opening attraction at the Teatro alla Scala). The premiere in 1787, just over two years before the storming of the Bastille, took pre-Revolutionary Paris let's just say by storm and continued to hold the stage through the first quarter of the 19thcentury. Then it vanished, until the bicentennial revival at the Schwetzingen Festspiele in Germany, documented on video, which until now stood (sauf erreur) as the sole revival of modern times.
Naturally, the sensation that was once Tarare spoke to its age. The librettist was none other than Pierre Beaumarchais, author of the politically incendiary Le Mariage de Figaro, source of Mozart's revolutionary-minded opera. (Wheels within wheels: Lorenzo da Ponte, who adapted the play for Mozart, went on to retool Tarare for Vienna as Axur, sung in Italian, then the fashionable language for opera there, with heavy musical revisions by the original composer.)
Like much of the the Figaro material—three plays in all, plus sequels by other hands, and operatic treatments of most if not all of these—Tarare revolves around a boss hell-bent on wrecking an underling's marriage out of sheer spite, because he can. In Mozart, the Count's rage erupts most nakedly in his aria in the third act. In Tarare, the wicked King Atar is already chewing the scenery when the curtain rises, spewing death threats at lackey cranky and brazen enough to talk back. It's a stupendous beginning, set up by a bracing overture. As the plot unfolds, tragedy and slapstick go hand in hand. Locations, moods, and exotic personnel are in constant flux, with harem scenes and episodes in blackface, until at the close, the standing army declares Tarare the new ruler—an honor he refuses out of loyalty to Atar, until that paper tiger grabs a sword and runs himself through from sheer pique.
Given the sea of attention-deficit disorder, #MeToo outrage, embrace of ironies, and dog-eat-dog ethics our world is awash in, Tarare's kaleidoscopic action feels strangely true to reality TV. Instrumentally as well as melodically and harmonically, the score is a marvel in an idiom is recognizably of Mozart's time but marked by a sensibility distinctly its own. What makes it so is not easy to pinpoint: a brilliancy verging on the brittle, perhaps, a trust in italicized rhetorical gesture rather than spontaneous expressive invention. An allegorical framework involving Nature and the Genius of Fire—reminiscent of the prologues in Monteverdi and court spectacle in the orbit of the Sun King Louis XIV—is a stumbling block for us, a bore really. As burning as the subject matter must have seemed in the afterglow of the Age of Voltaire and Rousseau (who both died in 1778), the debate about what makes Greatness in Man sounds sophomoric now. Spoiler alert: the answer, delivered in a whiplash epilogue, is not Station but Character. A deft arranger could prune this stuff, which might improve Tarare's prospects with audiences today. On the other hand, we would lose the signposts pointing to the opera's deliberately didactic, moralizing, even cardboard character, leaving us in the dark about the creators' intentions.
In short, Tarare remains, for now, an item for collectors of curiosities. For anyone tempted to take the journey, Christophe Rousset and his forces have prepared a thrilling adventure.
*
John Gibson/Miriam Seidel, Violet Fire (OMM, 2019)
- What is your wish
Parallel monologues from an opera on Nikola Tesla, the inventor and futurist to whom the world owes—among many other things—alternating-current electrical systems and the coil from which Leon Theremin developed an electronic musical instrument that hums, pitches and dynamics controlled by the movement of the players hands in the air, without contact. Hypnotic.
*
Poul Ruders/Becky & David Starobin, The Thirteenth Child (Bridge, 2019)
- The Forest
- Food Song
- A Riddle
Another new piece of music theater, presented on our show the morning after the world premiere at the Santa Fe Opera. Based on "The Twelve Brothers," a lesser-known tale from the Brothers Grimm. A king threatens his queen with the death of their twelve sons unless the thirteenth child, still in the womb, turns out to be a girl. The queen arranges for the boys' safety—unnecessarily, as it turns out, since the thirteenth child is, indeed a daughter. All turns out for the best in the end, though not for the parents and not without extra tribulations for the siblings after the princess innocently cuts the stalks of her brother's mysterious twelve lilies. What was she thinking? The ingenious score blends Gothic foreboding with music-hall brio. A delightful addition to the repertoire, likely to be taken up widely. That said, at 70 minutes, The Thirteenth Child passes a little swiftly for a full evening of opera. How about a double will with Stravinsky's Nightingale or Orff's Der Mond?
Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (ECM New Series)
Keith Jarrett
- Prelude in c-sharp minor
- Prelude in e-flat/d-sharp minor
- Prelude in f minor
The historic concert recording of March 1987 from the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, New York, a venue well known to connoisseurs of outstanding acoustics. To these ears, unique insights in Jarrett's Bach are evasive, but the preludes in minor keys bring out his best.
*
Laura Kaminsky/Mark Campbell & Kimberly Reed, As One (Bright Shiny Things, 2019)
Sasha Cooke, Kelly Markgraf, Fry Street Quartet, Steven Osgood
- Perfect Boy
- Close
- A Christmas Story
The two voices of the chamber opera As One are the voices of a single person, Hannah, before and after her transition from male to female. America seems to have been waiting to hear from such a witness: the work has been showing up from sea to shining sea, as far afield as Honolulu, meeting with sympathetic listeners. Our sample of three brief scenes confirms the fascination of the theme and the sensitivity of the treatment. The section "Perfect Boy," reminiscences of sad school days sung over the accompanying string quartet's breathless, febrile pizzicati in a robust, grown-up baritone, struck me as especially haunting, right through to its closing line: "Not one will ever know, not even me."
*
20th Century Harpsichord Concertos (Cedille, 2019)
Jory Vinikour, Chicago Philharmonic, Scott Speck, cond.
Walter Leigh, Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings
- I. Allegro
- II. Andante
- III. Allegro vivace
Who knew anyone was still writing harpsichord concerti? This disc features entries by Ned Rorem and Michael Nyman, who enjoy name recognition, as well as the obscure Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006) and Walter Leigh (1905-1942), the latter of whom made the most manageable demands on our airtime. Despite its brevity, the baroque-inspired yet also ultra Victorian Concertino is a wild ride, bold and resonant. An off-the-wall cadenza in the first movement conjures up an ecstatic Phantom of the Opera on the rampage at his private pipe organ. Then comes a stately, processional andante and finally the Allegro vivace, in the spirit of a drinking song with bravura fandango accents.