Vital Vocalists or Just Another Trend?

More and more, classical radio stations shun vocal music. The vocal recital is becoming a rarity in concert halls. Stellar soloists keep getting dropped from record company rosters. Recording operas is less and less economically feasible.

It would be easy to conclude that there is not much of a future for vocal discs, especially recitals of standard opera arias or art songs, and it would be easy to be wrong.

In fact, labels, little and large, are positively infatuated with recital discs.

For stars such as Bryn Terfel, it’s costs-be-damned: His first Wagner recording is accompanied by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic. A young Czech mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena, who is glamorous-looking enough to pass for a fashion model, is lavishly packaged and generously advertised. One young singer after another is heralded as “the Fourth Tenor” and given major record company promotion.

Is all this one last vestige of classical recording folly, just the kind of thing that got the industry into its current financial difficulties? Or are the labels on to something?

The Times’ classical reviewers take a look at the latest crop of vocal recitals to find out.

***1/2

WAGNER: Various arias

Bryn Terfel

Deutsche Grammophon

On his first Wagner recording, this all-conquering Welsh singer is simply stupendous. He may yet be a bit too boisterous for Wagner’s bass-baritone roles--those old men who carry the weight of the world’s suffering, and their own sins, on their shoulders.

Try though he does, he cannot quite settle down into the weary, dreary angst of Amfortas in “Parsifal.” But there is no Wagnerian baritone or bass today with the kind of immediate vocal presence and personality of Terfel.

The vitality he brings to Hans Sachs, in two arias from “The Mastersingers of Nuremberg,” makes the wise, lovable cobbler all the more human. As Wotan singing his moving farewell to Brunnhilde at the end of “The Valkyrie,” Terfel’s tenderness, his reserves of power that rise through the tears, break the heart.

Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic elevate every note they play.

One not too distant day, Terfel will likely become our greatest Wagner singer.

--Mark Swed

**1/2

“FRENCH OPERA ARIAS”

Ben Heppner

Deutsche Grammophon

***

“FRENCH ARIAS”

Marcelo Alvarez

Sony Classical

Heldentenor Ben Heppner’s venture into 19th century French opera repertory, accompanied by the London Symphony led by Myung-Whun Chung, isn’t a complete success. He sings with the power, heft and evenness that have made him formidable in German repertory, but all that vocal weight takes a toll against Gallic intimacy, light and shade and charm. The slow tempos favored by both singer and conductor expose Heppner’s sustained notes pulsing ominously. He also often pushes into the heights with more strain than ease. He is best in Eleazar’s heroic defiance of the crowds shouting for his death (Halevy’s “La Juive”), Rodrigue’s call to arms (Massenet’s “Le Cid”) or Berlioz’s cantata-like setting of “La Marseillaise.” Then things take off.

Argentine Alvarez (one of the heralded “Fourth Tenors”) will never conquer Heppner’s heavy German repertory, but he has more of the right stuff for passionate French and bel canto opera--lightness, youthful idealism, varied shades of color, a caressing and fascinating line, and a secure range from intimacy to heroic declamation. If his high Cs aren’t always totally thrilling (“Pour mon ame” from Donizetti’s “La fille du regiment”), they still blossom ardently, beautifully. Highlights on this disc, in which Alvarez is well-supported by forces from the Nice Opera, led by Mark Elder, include “Seul sur la terre” (from Donizetti’s “Dom Sebastien”) and “Ah! Fuyez, douce image” (from Massenet’s “Manon”).

Like Heppner, he has trouble in the heights of “Plus blanche que la blanche hermine” (Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots”), the only aria the two discs have in common. He’s also taxed, as any human tenor would be, in Arnold’s rallying the troops from Rossini’s “Guillaume Tell.”

--Chris Pasles

***

“LE BELLE IMMAGINI”

Magdalena Kozena

Deutsche Grammophon

This Czech beauty has made three previous recordings, two of Handel and one of her native art songs, and already she seems to have as many looks as Madonna.

This latest CD shows her in seductive soft focus with long straight blond hair, lounging by the riverside in a ponytail, and with Botticelli curls in front of Frank Gehry’s famous Prague bank building known as “Fred and Ginger.” Should we be suspicious? Absolutely. Should we listen? Absolutely. Hype or no hype, there happens to be yet another outstanding mezzo on the scene. Kozena is a high mezzo, almost a soprano, who brings a winning balance of vocal poise and dramatic fire that seems just right for the selection of lesser-known arias from Mozart, Gluck and Josef Myslivecek, a Czech composer who was 19 years Mozart’s senior. Like most singers in their 20s, she does not yet reveal a strong individual personality. But she is marvelously musical, theatrically compelling and vocally alluring. Her looks may accelerate her rise to stardom, but her voice is what will keep her there.

--M.S.

***

ROSSINI: Arias and Overtures

Ewa Podles

Dux

***

ROSSINI: Arias and Sinfonias

Maria Bayo, soprano

Astree/Naive

Showpiece arias sung by the veteran Polish contralto Ewa Podles and by the relative newcomer Maria Bayo--who sang Susanna in L.A. Opera’s “Marriage of Figaro” in 2001--comprise the content of these albums. Podles’ performances were part of the 1998 Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. Italian soprano Bayo recorded her performances in July 2001 in Rome, with the period-instrument ensemble Concerto Italiano.

Podles effortlessly dominates the musical landscape in excerpts from “Barbiere,” “Tancredi,” “Semiramide,” “Maometto II,” “La Donna del Lago” and “L’Italiana in Algeri,” artistically handling her rich middle voice, deep lower octave and brilliant high notes with practiced grandeur. The music is ennobling, but hearing all these test pieces at one time is like eating a box of See’s candy at one sitting.

On the other hand, Bayo’s huge talent embraces the listener with an abundance of vocal beauty and heady technical accomplishment in her Rossini survey. She sings six excerpts from “La Scala di Seta,” “Tancredi” and “La Gazza Ladra,” among others, with exceptional adroitness, subtlety and creamy tone. She is felicitously accompanied by the Concerto Italiano ensemble and an attentive conductor.

--Daniel Cariaga

***1/2

“WHILE I DREAM”

Barbara Bonney

Decca

One of America’s most popular sopranos, Bonney has proved to be one of its more resourceful as well. On this recital disc--which contains a dozen songs by Liszt and Schumann’s song cycle “Dichterliebe” (A Poet’s Love)--she accomplishes something altogether remarkable. It is unusual, but not unheard of, for a woman to sing Schumann’s cycle, in which a poet pours out the course of his love from sexual awakening to lost love and despair. Lotte Lehmann sang the songs in the ‘40s, simply reversing the gender. Bonney, however, is more interesting, interpreting the songs, she writes in the notes, as a woman interprets a man. It is his feelings she recounts, but in her voice, as if reading his letters and internalizing his emotions. As a result, there are different dramatic tensions than we are used to, and a very familiar work takes on a new dimension. The singing is gorgeous, as it is in the dreamy Liszt songs, and Antonio Pappano, who takes over as music director of Royal Opera in the fall, is a stimulating accompanist.

-- M.S.

*** 1/2

CHAMINADE: “Mots d’amour”

Anne Sofie von Otter

Deutsche Grammophon

This lively recording brings to the fore the too-little-known music of French composer Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944), whose popularity was limited by her 19th century tastes at a time of transition into Modernism, not to mention the matter of her gender in the male-dominated world of composing. Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter has been working in the crossover trenches, on last year’s interesting if strange collaboration with Elvis Costello. Back on firmer idiomatic ground, Otter gives persuasive and considered readings of 25 Chaminade songs, many in their premiere recordings here. Smartly accompanied by pianist Bengt Forsberg, the recording states a case for wider recognition for this composer. Part of the mission, though somewhat distracting to the album’s sense of context, are several of the composer’s delightful little pieces, for violin and piano and for two pianos, with assistance from violinist Nils-Erik Sparf and pianist Peter Jablonski.

--Josef Woodard

****

ROSSINI: Arias

Juan Diego Florez

Decca

Juan Diego Florez is yet another brilliant young talent from South America. The 29-year-old tenor from Peru sings this unhackneyed collection of eight showpiece arias with body, strength, heart, and supreme ease and confidence. He has admirable agility and thrilling high notes, and knows how to shape a phrase with assurance and intelligence. You can detect a slight, tight vibrato, but the voice opens gloriously on top. The only caveat is that in recording, the size of the voice cannot accurately be determined. Word on the street is that the disc doesn’t do justice to Florez on stage. The chorus sings with bright verve. Riccardo Chailly conducts Milan’s Guiseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with stylish lightness, speed and sympathy.

--C.P.

***

“AIRS BAROQUE FRANCAIS”

Patricia Petitbon

Virgin Veritas

This young French soprano, who has a much wider repertory than her reputation as a collaborator with the early-music group Les Arts Florissants would indicate, she stays with French Baroque composers here, tilting toward excerpts from Rameau’s operas. The program really takes off when Petitbon throws herself into her characters. When keening about in “Madness” from Rameau’s “Platee,” her deliberately unreliable pitch and slightly demented laughter do indeed suggest madness. She pushes emotion over the top in two arias from Lully’s “Armide” as the wheezy period band backing her goes crazy with drums and wind machine. Lucky for us that she has the irreverence to close with Grandval’s wicked cantata for aggravated sopranos, “Rien du Tout” (Nothing at All)--which must be heard to be believed.

--Richard S. Ginell

**

“BEL SOGNO”

Cristina Gallardo-Domas

Teldec

Chilean Gallardo-Domas is starting to get some prime assignments on high-profile complete opera recordings. Yet one wonders what the future holds for this rising diva. On track after track, she displays a melting, winsome timbre in the middle register that slightly resembles that of Maria Callas. But when she soars into the upper reaches at top volume, her vibrato becomes a wobble and her tone often turns abrasive. After opening nods to Cilea, Donizetti, Catalani and Bellini, the rest of the program is mostly meat-and-potatoes Verdi and Puccini. Although Gallardo-Domas is aware of the drama and displays some temperament, do her interpretations justify another recording of chestnuts like “Sempre libera” and “Un bel di”? Not at this point.

--R.S.G.