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Gramophone awards shortList 2015 opera Click on a CD cover to buy or stream from qobuz.com Berg ◊ Y lulu (three-act version, compl Friedrich Cerha) Barbara Hannigan sop .................................................... Lulu Dietrich Henschel bar ....... Dr Schön/Jack the Ripper Charles Workman ten .....................................................Alwa Natascha Petrinsky mez ............ Countess Geschwitz Tom Randle ten ............................................. Painter/Negro Pavlo Hunka bass-bar ........................................... Schigolch Frances Bourne mez .................................................................. ............. Wardrobe Mistress/High School Boy/Groom Ivan Ludlow bar ...........................Animal Tamer/Athlete La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra / Paul Daniel Stage director Krzysztof Warlikowski Video director Myriam Hoyer Bel Air Classiques F b ◊ BAC109 (3h 14’ • NTSC • 16:9 • DD5.1 & PCM stereo • 0 • s) It’s only right that any performance of Lulu should revolve around its protagonist. But the way that the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan dominates Krzysztof Warlikowski’s nightmarish Brussels staging of Berg’s great unfinished masterpiece is nevertheless remarkable. Tall, slender and chameleonic, she stalks the stage compellingly – often in a state of undress, by turns shockingly sexual and numbly asexual, cultivated and animalistic. The voice itself is remarkably clear and clean: not the most sensuous instrument, perhaps, but one that is used with great intelligence and accuracy. She moves hypnotically, too, and with a balletic grace. Indeed, the fact that Hannigan herself can float around en pointe no doubt helped dictate the fact that the powerfully disturbing image of the broken ballerina plays such a role throughout the production. In one of many extended unaccompanied prologues and postludes introduced by Warlikowski, we watch a ballerina go through a breakdown for a whole five minutes. These directorial additions, intriguing enough first time around, soon pall though, and they are perhaps symptomatic of a production that piles on decadence and psychological symbols rather too indiscriminately. There are times when the camera struggles to keep up, and when the stage feels cluttered and the action unnecessarily diluted. That said, Małgorzata Szcze˛s´niak’s designs are imaginative. The costumes – beyond Lulu’s multiple outfits – have a deeply unsettling, over-the-top, dystopian feel to them. The set is effectively disorientating too, made up of an imposing pair of escalators on one side, a moveable glass box on the other; curtains are used to emphasise multiple layers of theatricality. The production is at its best, though, when everything is stripped away, and the final 10 minutes are as gripping and shocking as they should be. Hannigan is also well supported by the rest of the cast. Natascha Petrinsky is a handsome, moving Geschwitz. Dietrich Henschel’s gruff, dry voice seems only to add to his threatening Dr Schön. Tom Randle is impressive as the painter. Very impressive, too, are the orchestra and Paul Daniel, who is particularly adept at finding the score’s drama and beauty. It’s Hannigan, though, who makes this release so irresistibly watchable. Hugo Shirley (December 2014) Britten ◊ Y death in venice John Graham-Hall ten ........Gustav von Aschenbach Andrew Shore bar ....................Traveller/Elderly Fop/ ............Old Gondolier/Hotel Manager/Hotel Barber/ .................... Leader of the Players/Voice of Dionysus Tim Mead counterten ............................Voice of Apollo Sam Zaldivar dncr ................................................. Tadzio Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera / Edward Gardner Stage director Deborah Warner Video director Ross MacGibbon Opus Arte F ◊ OA1130D; F Y OABD7141D (153’ • NTSC • 16:9 • 1080p • DTS-HD MA5.1, DTS5.1 & LPCM stereo • 0 • S/s) Recorded live, June 18, 21 & 24, 2013 One of the advantages of watching opera on DVD is that you get the best seat in the house. In the theatre the panoramic projections that form the backdrop to English National Opera’s production of Death in Venice could not be seen to full effect from some angles but Opus Arte gives us an ideal vantage point. It might have seemed that no DVD could surpass the beauty of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s inimitably Italian staging from La Fenice but Deborah Warner’s production is surely its equal – visually ravishing in its luminous images of sea and sky, reflecting shadowy gondoliers and heat-hazed outlines of the Venetian skyline. The lighting designer, Jean Kalman, deserves special credit. In the central role of Gustav von Aschenbach, John Graham-Hall takes us on a devastating journey. Essentially a character tenor, he is parsimonious with the opera’s vocal beauty (the recitatives are invariably more telling than the passages of arioso) but he has stamina, clear words and the ability to penetrate to the heart of the role. Highly charged from the start, his Aschenbach is seen to collapse before our eyes, torn apart from inside by the psychological battle being waged within. In his seven-fold Dionysiac role, Andrew Shore is sometimes dry of voice but presents a vivid collection of personalities (if only the recent obituaries of John Shirley-Quirk had not reminded us how powerfully insidious a presence he was in this opera). With Tim Mead as a radiant Apollo and Sam Zaldivar a cheekily downto-earth Tadzio, all the supporting parts are well cast, and Edward Gardner is as ever an authoritative Britten conductor, exercising a grip on every bar that makes the opera seem not a note too long. It is criminal that the original production with Pears as Aschenbach was not filmed. But we are lucky to have a real choice now on DVD, from Glyndebourne’s 1990 production with Robert Tear’s unsentimental Aschenbach to the visually sumptuous La Fenice production. This latest release, expertly filmed by Opus Arte, is arguably the best of all. No other performance on DVD has presented the psychological dilemma posed by Thomas Mann and Britten with such intensity. Richard Fairman (July 2014) Selected comparisons:  Glyndebourne, Jenkins (8/01) (ARTH) ◊ 100 172  Fenice, Bartoletti (2/11) (DYNA) ◊ 33608; Y 55608 Schoenberg moses und aron Franz Grundheber bar/spkr ...................................... Moses Andreas Conrad ten ........................................................ Aron Johanna Winkel, Katharina Persicke sops Elvira Bill, Nora Petrochenko contrs 28 GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2015 gramophone.co.uk
page 27
Gramophone awards shortList 2015 Devastating journey: John Graham-Hall portrays Aschenbach with ‘the ability to penetrate to the heart of the role’ in ENO’s 2013 production of Britten’s Death in Venice Jean-Noel Briend ten Andreas Wolf bar Friedemann Röhlig bass EuropaChorAkademie; SWR Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden & Freiburg / Sylvain Cambreling Hänssler Classic F b Í CD93 314 (101’ • DDD • T/t) Recorded live, September 2012 I N G I N N G L E N D H U G O : p h o t o G r a p h y This CD recording of Schoenberg’s most substantial dramatic work appears in the same year that Welsh National Opera gave the opera its first British production in half a century. Derived from four concert performances in different German, Swiss and French locations in September 2012, it doesn’t attempt to match the acoustic ambience of a live staging but it still provides a strongly dramatic as well as musically convincing reading of this challenging score. Schoenberg’s libretto extends over three acts. Although he completed the first two quite quickly, during 1930-32, the music for Act 3 was never written. The first two scenes plunge the listener into the opera’s most complex textures, with scene 2 exposing the incompatibility between the speaking Moses and the singing Aron by superimposing their very different lines of text. Here the recording is particularly effective in its balancing of the disparities, always managing to convey the forceful lyricism that makes Schoenberg’s fervent response to the biblical drama so much more than mere eye-music. As the work proceeds, dramatic intensity increasingly outweighs textural complexity, Act 2 progressing from the predominantly orchestral depiction of the ‘Dance round the Golden Calf’ to the stark confrontation between the brothers. Here superimposition is no longer used; their extended dialogue ends as Aron leaves with the Jewish people and Moses remains behind in solitary despair, his final broken phrases in dialogue with a supremely eloquent string line. Had the music for Act 3 been written, the effect (with Aaron’s death and Moses’s clinching declaration of theological rectitude) would have been very different but it is difficult to feel that it could have been musically more satisfying. Franz Grundheber and Andreas Conrad sustain their complementary roles with all the necessary conviction; and although a larger and more assertive chorus might have been desirable, the total ensemble is well defined and dramatically engaged throughout, with all the smaller vocal parts well taken. Sylvain Cambreling brings out the extraordinarily intense austerity of the dialogue scenes and ensures that the luridly pictorial aspects of the ‘Dance round the Golden Calf’ are never over-emphasised. This imposing, intriguing opera is one of the most powerful contributions to 20th-century musical modernism and this recording does it justice. Arnold Whittall (Awards 2014) R Strauss ◊ Y elektra Evelyn Herlitzius sop .................................................Elektra Waltraud Meier mez ....................................Klytemnestra Adrianne Pieczonka sop .......................... Chrysothemis Tom Randle ten ...................................................... Aegisthus Mikhail Petrenko bass ............................................. Orestes Gulbenkian Chorus; Orchestre de Paris / Esa-Pekka Salonen Stage director Patrice Chéreau Video director Stéphane Metge Bel Air Classiques F ◊ BAC110; F Y BAC410 (110’ + 23’ • NTSC • 16:9 • DTS-HD MA5.1, DD5.1 & PCM stereo • 0 • s) Recorded live at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, July 2013. Bonus: Interview with Patrice Chéreau Reviewed alongside: Staatskapelle Dresden, Thielemann (DG) 479 3387 For many, Evelyn Herlitzius is today’s finest Elektra. And the record companies seem to agree: these two releases represent her first appearance in the role on DVD/Blu-ray but her second on CD (the first, a live recording from Amsterdam under Marc Albrecht, was issued on Challenge Classics in 2012). gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2015 29

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Gramophone awards shortList 2015

opera

Click on a CD cover to buy or stream from qobuz.com

Berg

◊ Y

lulu (three-act version, compl Friedrich Cerha) Barbara Hannigan sop .................................................... Lulu Dietrich Henschel bar ....... Dr Schön/Jack the Ripper Charles Workman ten .....................................................Alwa Natascha Petrinsky mez ............ Countess Geschwitz Tom Randle ten ............................................. Painter/Negro Pavlo Hunka bass-bar ........................................... Schigolch Frances Bourne mez .................................................................. ............. Wardrobe Mistress/High School Boy/Groom Ivan Ludlow bar ...........................Animal Tamer/Athlete La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra / Paul Daniel Stage director Krzysztof Warlikowski Video director Myriam Hoyer Bel Air Classiques F b ◊ BAC109 (3h 14’ • NTSC • 16:9 • DD5.1 & PCM stereo • 0 • s)

It’s only right that any performance of Lulu should revolve around its protagonist. But the way that the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan dominates Krzysztof Warlikowski’s nightmarish Brussels staging of Berg’s great unfinished masterpiece is nevertheless remarkable. Tall, slender and chameleonic, she stalks the stage compellingly – often in a state of undress, by turns shockingly sexual and numbly asexual, cultivated and animalistic. The voice itself is remarkably clear and clean: not the most sensuous instrument, perhaps, but one that is used with great intelligence and accuracy.

She moves hypnotically, too, and with a balletic grace. Indeed, the fact that Hannigan herself can float around en pointe no doubt helped dictate the fact that the powerfully disturbing image of the broken ballerina plays such a role throughout the production. In one of many extended unaccompanied prologues and postludes introduced by Warlikowski, we watch a ballerina go through a breakdown for a whole five minutes.

These directorial additions, intriguing enough first time around, soon pall though, and they are perhaps symptomatic of a production that piles on decadence and psychological symbols rather too indiscriminately. There are times when the camera struggles to keep up, and when the stage feels cluttered and the action unnecessarily diluted. That said,

Małgorzata Szcze˛s´niak’s designs are imaginative. The costumes – beyond Lulu’s multiple outfits – have a deeply unsettling, over-the-top, dystopian feel to them. The set is effectively disorientating too, made up of an imposing pair of escalators on one side, a moveable glass box on the other; curtains are used to emphasise multiple layers of theatricality. The production is at its best, though, when everything is stripped away, and the final 10 minutes are as gripping and shocking as they should be.

Hannigan is also well supported by the rest of the cast. Natascha Petrinsky is a handsome, moving Geschwitz. Dietrich Henschel’s gruff, dry voice seems only to add to his threatening Dr Schön. Tom Randle is impressive as the painter. Very impressive, too, are the orchestra and Paul Daniel, who is particularly adept at finding the score’s drama and beauty. It’s Hannigan, though, who makes this release so irresistibly watchable. Hugo Shirley (December 2014)

Britten

◊ Y

death in venice John Graham-Hall ten ........Gustav von Aschenbach Andrew Shore bar ....................Traveller/Elderly Fop/ ............Old Gondolier/Hotel Manager/Hotel Barber/ .................... Leader of the Players/Voice of Dionysus Tim Mead counterten ............................Voice of Apollo Sam Zaldivar dncr ................................................. Tadzio Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera / Edward Gardner Stage director Deborah Warner Video director Ross MacGibbon Opus Arte F ◊ OA1130D; F Y OABD7141D (153’ • NTSC • 16:9 • 1080p • DTS-HD MA5.1, DTS5.1 & LPCM stereo • 0 • S/s) Recorded live, June 18, 21 & 24, 2013

One of the advantages of watching opera on DVD is that you get the best seat in the house. In the theatre the panoramic projections that form the backdrop to English National Opera’s production of Death in Venice could not be seen to full effect from some angles but Opus Arte gives us an ideal vantage point. It might have seemed that no DVD could surpass the beauty of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s inimitably Italian staging from La Fenice but Deborah Warner’s production is surely its equal – visually ravishing in its luminous images of sea and sky, reflecting shadowy gondoliers and heat-hazed outlines of the Venetian skyline. The lighting designer, Jean Kalman, deserves special credit.

In the central role of Gustav von Aschenbach, John Graham-Hall takes us on a devastating journey. Essentially a character tenor, he is parsimonious with the opera’s vocal beauty (the recitatives are invariably more telling than the passages of arioso) but he has stamina, clear words and the ability to penetrate to the heart of the role. Highly charged from the start, his Aschenbach is seen to collapse before our eyes, torn apart from inside by the psychological battle being waged within. In his seven-fold Dionysiac role, Andrew Shore is sometimes dry of voice but presents a vivid collection of personalities (if only the recent obituaries of John Shirley-Quirk had not reminded us how powerfully insidious a presence he was in this opera). With Tim Mead as a radiant Apollo and Sam Zaldivar a cheekily downto-earth Tadzio, all the supporting parts are well cast, and Edward Gardner is as ever an authoritative Britten conductor, exercising a grip on every bar that makes the opera seem not a note too long.

It is criminal that the original production with Pears as Aschenbach was not filmed. But we are lucky to have a real choice now on DVD, from Glyndebourne’s 1990 production with Robert Tear’s unsentimental Aschenbach to the visually sumptuous La Fenice production. This latest release, expertly filmed by Opus Arte, is arguably the best of all. No other performance on DVD has presented the psychological dilemma posed by Thomas Mann and Britten with such intensity. Richard Fairman (July 2014) Selected comparisons:  Glyndebourne, Jenkins (8/01) (ARTH) ◊ 100 172  Fenice, Bartoletti (2/11) (DYNA) ◊ 33608; Y 55608

Schoenberg moses und aron Franz Grundheber bar/spkr ...................................... Moses Andreas Conrad ten ........................................................ Aron Johanna Winkel, Katharina Persicke sops Elvira Bill, Nora Petrochenko contrs

28 GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2015

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