France Berlioz and Wagner: Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Michael Spyres (baritenor), Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg / John Nelson and Ludovic Morlot (conductors). Livestreamed on medici.television (directed by Jean-Pierre Loisill) from the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès, Strasbourg, France, 26.1.2024. (JPr)
Berlioz – Chasse royale et orage; ‘Nuit d’ivresse et d’extase’ (Les Troyens, Act IV); Cleopatra scène lyrique; Roméo seul, tristesse, bruits de live performance et de bal; Grande fête chez Capulet (Roméo et Juliette, Op.17, Half II)
Wagner – Wesendonck-Lieder, WWV 91
I’m positive I’m improper to think about Hector Berlioz a three-hit marvel as I’ve solely actually encountered his 1830 (apparently) opium-inspired ‘program music’ Symphonie fantastique, his 1845 part-oratorio, part-opera La damnation de Faust and an 1858 opera Les Troyens. (Although that is probably all the way down to my musical ignorance than the rest.) In a live performance partly recreating a latest Erato launch with a number of the identical musical forces (the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the – now fairly frail – American conductor John Nelson and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato) I heard in live performance extra Berlioz than I’ve ever carried out.
It was a fairly oddly programmed live performance and – although there are a selection of the explanation why I’m not within the live performance corridor extra typically – I ponder why folks will purchase tickets for a night the place the music truly performed was considerably lower than ninety minutes! It started with Berlioz’s Chasse royale et orage (Royal Hunt and Storm) from Les Troyens performed by French conductor Ludovic Morlot. Regardless of the horn calls the hunt begins quietly with the primary of many essential contributions from oboist Samuel Retaillaud and the music excitingly ramps up because the storm approaches (intriguingly just like Rossini’s 1829 William Inform Overture). The timpani and brass develop into extra distinguished and since we learn about Berlioz’s affect on Wagner right here there may be ‘a rooster and egg state of affairs’ as a result of there are hints of the Experience of the Valkyries, however it isn’t completely clear what got here first. Lastly, the sound of the music ebbs away with extra from Retaillaud’s oboe, in addition to Sandrine François’s flute.
Extra ignorance on my half however once I first noticed the live performance marketed I anticipated Joyce DiDonato to sing the Wesendonck-Lieder when truly it was to be baritenor Michael Spyres and the primary time I’ve heard a male singer carry out all of them …and, in the long run, not one thing I’d want to hear once more. Wagner’s perfect-in-miniature masterpieces have been composed within the late 1850s when he was ‘concerned’ with Mathilde Wesendonck in what could have simply been an affair of the thoughts, although it did encourage the 5 poems of hers he set to music and which led to the creation of Tristan und Isolde with music from the third act and second act heard within the songs, Im Treibhaus and Träume, respectively. (The songs have been initially written for piano accompaniment however have been later orchestrated by Wagner’s good friend Felix Mottl.)
Spyres’s singing was undermined for me by the main target of his eyes being on the iPad in entrance of him and never the viewers. The preliminary two songs got here and went with the angel of the primary one remaining earthbound and ideas of nature within the second (Stehe Nonetheless!) having little radiance or transcendence. I started to wonder if Spyres has studied Tristan as a result of Im Treibhaus was notably higher, and he floated ‘Luft’ and ‘Duft’ and caressed the musical line extra. What was by no means unsure over the 5 songs was Spyres’s exemplary supply of the texts and the delicate accompaniment he obtained from Morlot and his virtuosic musicians. Sadly, Schmerzen was an instance of – what I describe as – can belto; although the ultimate track once more suited his voice nonetheless the repeated phrase ‘Träume’ wanted to be, effectively, dreamier.
The descent of Spyres’s final Wesendonck phrases ‘sinken in die Gruft’ gave proof of the spectacular artistry he has at his command given the precise repertoire and this was confirmed after the interval within the love duet ‘Nuit d’ivresse’ (‘Drunken evening’) once more from Les Troyens. Spyres was joined by Joyce DiDonato and the orchestra was now performed by a batonless – and primarily seated – John Nelson who conjured up some finely-shaded orchestral help. Now it was a case of Spyres who knew the rating and DiDonato who wanted it. Spyres was ardent and lyrically expressive and considerably outshone DiDonato although all of it sounded suitably sensuous. Their voices blended fantastically on this deeply intimate and romantic duet set to music which I consider foreshadows Didon’s tragic finish when Enée abandons her.
A 25-year-old Berlioz submitted ‘La Mort de Cléopâtre’ for the Paris Conservatory’s prestigious Prix de Rome in 1829 and was unsuccessful for a 3rd time. There may be apparently an anecdote about how a professor would have most popular ‘soothing music’ with Berlioz retorting the way it was not straightforward to put in writing something soothing about an Egyptian queen dying an agonising loss of life after being bitten by a toxic snake! Passages soar after which stagnate and – to be truthful – I puzzled if it could ever finish.
DiDonato normally has a consummate means to speak what she is singing about to an viewers, although once more this was hampered her by her wanting on the music. However, she efficiently revealed a regal and wounded Cleopatra resigned to her impending destiny and was I the one one to suppose they truly felt the chunk of the snake? Was that DiDonato’s artistry or extra most likely Berlioz’s particularly when he has composed it so successfully – and affectingly – in his music after which with its stuttering strings we expertise the queen’s faltering heartbeat as she dies. In fact, you’d count on DiDonato’s dramatic, dark-sounding mezzo-soprano tones to suit this work completely, which they do, nonetheless the higher reaches of her voice do not need the benefit of earlier years and sooner passages have been sometimes considerably of a problem.
Within the closing two extracts from Berlioz’s choral symphony homage to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Nelson and the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra revelled within the composer’s musical kaleidoscope and collectively they proved virtually to be a tone poem on their very own. A tragic Romeo is depicted alone (extra excellence right here from the oboe of Retaillaud) and as Leonard Bernstein as soon as demonstrated the ‘love-sick sighs’ discovered their method into Tristan und Isolde, so why didn’t the orchestra have the Prelude to Act I within the programme? Then we heard a extra rumbustious ‘Distant sounds from the live performance and the ball’ and a sure triumphalism within the ‘Nice banquet on the Capulets’ earlier than Nelson and his glorious orchestra introduced the live performance to a rousing conclusion.
Jim Pritchard
