Jennifer Taylor
Possible a matter of serendipity than deliberate planning, Carnegie Corridor just lately introduced a week-long competition of Jap European vocal music with top-flight worldwide performers. If track recitals by opera stars Piotr Beczala and Asmik Grigorian typically got here up brief, Semyon Bychkov’s highly effective rendition of the Glagolitic Mass immediately grew to become one of many yr’s highlights.
Janácek’s sacred work closed the second of three packages shared by the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonic Refrain marking 2024’s 12 months of Czech Music. The often naked Carnegie stage was festively adorned with pots of pink and white flower and two giant inexperienced banners. The viewers included many chicly attired Czechs — I didn’t hear a phrase of English round me the whole night — who vigorously cheered not solely the Mass and Dvorák’sPiano Concerto, but in addition the President of the Czech Republic who was in attendance.
The Dvorak which started the night gave many alternatives for Daniil Trifonov to show his dazzling method, however his bravura wasn’t sufficient to rework the earnest concerto right into a masterwork. He was clearly the primary attraction for some viewers members together with the gentleman seated subsequent to me who fled at intermission. However they missed an impressed orchestra, 4 advantageous soloists, a masterly organist, and a mighty eighty-member refrain deal with one of many jewels of Janácek’s most efficient remaining years.
Jennifer Taylor
Although the composer was an atheist, he utilized the standard Mass (in Outdated Church Slavonic reasonably than Latin) to precise his deeply non secular nature. Maybe because of the giant forces required, Janacek’s work hadn’t been carried out at Carnegie Corridor since 2010, however I couldn’t imagine that the New York Philharmonic hasn’t programmed it since 1963 when Leonard Bernstein led it. As Cincinnati’s Might Pageant all the time prominently options choral music, I first encountered the work there within the mid-Nineteen Eighties and by no means forgot its gorgeous influence.
Of its eight actions, solely 5 function voices; the work begins and ends with the orchestra alone whereas the seventh is an prolonged and demanding organ solo, performed at Carnegie by Daniela Valtrov Kosinova. Listeners acquainted with plenty by Brahms or Verdi might discover Janácek’s use of his solo vocalists uncommon. They don’t have actions to themselves however reasonably enter typically unexpectedly amidst the complexly pungent choral writing which the Prague group dealt with with vigorous precision.
Little recognized within the US, soprano Katerina Knezikova has a rising discography; she has simply launched an all-Strauss CD together with the Vier Letzte Lieder in addition to songs accompanied on the piano by conductor Jakub Hrusa.
This summer season she returns to the Glyndebourne Pageant to as soon as once more star in Janácek’s Kata Kabanova. Though she started uncertainly at Carnegie, Knezikova quickly revealed a cooly gleaming soprano which soared neatly over Bychkov’s churning orchestra and refrain. Mezzo Lucie Hilscherova, with far much less to do, didn’t make a lot of an impression.
Bass David Leigh, the only non-Czech soloist and topic of a current parterre field profile by Judith Malafronte, contributed a commanding presence in his transient interjections, notably his duet with ringing tenor Ales Briscein who dealt with the punishingly excessive tessitura of his frequent solos with shining energy.
A number of days later, one other tenor took the Stern stage with decidedly extra intimate music. Taking a break day from rehearsals on the Met for its new Aida which premieres on New 12 months’s Eve, Piotr Beczala put aside Verdi for a recital of Russian, Polish, and German songs accompanied by Helmut Deutsch, who’s most continuously heard because the associate of one other famous person tenor, Jonas Kaufmann.
Chris Lee
Maybe the exertions of Radames had zapped his energies as Beczala provided a blandly low-energy night. Works by Tchaikovsky, Greig (in German), Karlowicz, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff tended to be reasonably critical and romantic in nature and allowed the affable tenor (who turns 58 three days earlier than Aida opens) to show with plangent ardor his remarkably well-preserved and sunny voice which sometimes rose to still-secure house-filling excessive notes.
As a rule intently gazing at his rating, Beczala didn’t come throughout as a pure recitalist armed with richly nuanced interpretations. Each track sounded just about like the opposite; even the uncommon Karlowicz songs in his native Polish didn’t elicit a lot of a spark. He and Deutsch, often a masterful accompanist, lacked chemistry and the viewers responded with respectful applause that usually died out earlier than the performers had exited the stage.
As they usually do, 4 encores introduced out the singer’s finest displaying extra engagement particularly within the one by Moniuszko, a uncommon occasion when the tenor sang with out referring to his rating. We eventually acquired a glimpse of the type of deeply felt communication of which he might be succesful.
Jennifer Taylor
Three days later down in Zankel Corridor, Asmik Grigorian, returning to New York for the primary time since her acclaimed Met debut this spring in Madama Butterfly, additionally sang from behind a music stand which held her music iPad. It appeared odd {that a} rating was wanted as she’s been periodically providing this identical program of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff songs since she recorded them a number of years in the past with fellow Lithuanian, excellent pianist Lukas Geniusas. In actual fact, Joel Rozen reviewed an identical recital they provided on the Aix-en-Provence Pageant in the summertime of 2023.
These answerable for Stern ordained we needn’t be capable to learn Beczala’s textual content and translations, so the lights had been stored down; nevertheless, Grigorian’s viewers had a a lot brighter home. Since I’m not particularly acquainted with Russian track repertoire, I can’t communicate to how these performers examine to their lengthy record of predecessors. Nevertheless, Beczala and Grigorian’s approaches to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff—they even sang a number of of the identical songs—differed markedly.
Regardless of the presence of the scores at which she solely sometimes glanced, the darkly intense soprano, not like Beczala, rapidly conjured a brand new world with every track. Absolutely, the extra intimate area in Zankel helped, however her arresting involvement–rivetingly assisted by Geniusas– drew us in and gripped us by means of every group. Although she eschewed any gestures, her flamboyantly emotional strategy made Tchaikovsky’s songs resonate as rather more strongly emotional than these provided by Beczala.
Although she did justice to a few of Rachmaninoff’s quieter songs, she embraced an enormous operatic strategy to “Spring Waters” and the demanding “Dissonances,” which concluded this system and which she took because the title for her album. Typically she appeared like she is perhaps a mezzo as the center of her voice poured forth in a velvety stream. However sturdy excessive notes had been plentiful, although they maybe emerged with some effort and lacked actual freedom. Her dynamics ranged impressively from the softest of excessive pianissimi to show-stopping diva climaxes. Her sheer leopard-patterned robe tartly married modesty with a playful provocative trend aptitude. Regardless of loud ovations and two bouquets, we had been rewarded with only a single unannounced encore.
Jennifer Taylor
It could seem that Grigorian is eventually transferring on from this all-Russian recital program. At subsequent summer season’s Salzburg Pageant (the place she’ll be once more showing in Macbeth), she and pianist Hyung-ki Joo will current “A Diva is Born” that includes music by Georges Bizet, Giacomo Puccini, Olivier Messiaen, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Girl Gaga, and Sting!
However first: who will win the fast-approaching Norma sweepstakes? Grigorian would be the first of three sopranos singing their first naughty Druid priestesses in new productions throughout Europe this spring. In mid-February on the Theater an der Wien, Grigorian, directed by her associate Vasily Barkhatov, will duet with Aigul Akhmetshina after being betrayed by the tenor the Viennese web site calls Frederick Rocco De Tomasso. Later in February, Federica Lombardi on the Wiener Staatsoper quickly loses Juan Diego Florez to Vasilia Berzhanskaya, whereas in April at Berlin’s Staatsoper. the Barkhatov staging reappears with Rachel Willis-Sorensen, Elmina Hasan, and Dmitri Korchak. Which one would YOU attend?
