A hopeful era in American opera

Bernstein: “Trouble in Tahiti.”

Karl Daymond, Stephanie Novacek, vocalists; City of London Sinfonia; Paul Daniel, conductor; Tom Cairns, director. (BBC Opus Arte DVD)

**

Menotti: “The Medium.”

Marie Powers, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Leo Coleman; Symphony Orchestra of Rome Radio Italiana; Thomas Schippers, conductor; Gian-Carlo Menotti, director. (VAI DVD)

*** 1/2

IN the late 1940s and early 1950s, it looked as though American opera might break through into popular culture. Menotti’s “The Medium” ran on Broadway for 211 performances in 1947-48; NBC commissioned Menotti’s “Amahl and Night Visitors” for television in 1951. Kurt Weill and Marc Blitzstein experimented with merging opera and the musical, and Leonard Bernstein made his own valiant attempt with the 45-minute “Trouble in Tahiti.”

A dark parody of postwar prosperity, “Trouble in Tahiti” proved a difficult balancing act, its musical style too tricky and its length too short to interest Broadway. And the subject matter, the seething anger underlying picture-postcard suburban life, seemed at odds with its jazzy musical style. But if this 1952 work was ahead of its time -- Sondheim would be hard to imagine without it -- it is perfect for a modern TV production like this one from the BBC. Unfortunately, the director, Tom Cairns, is so besotted with the ‘50s imagery (most of it five or six years later than the period of the opera) that he nearly drowns the whole the thing in campiness.

The performances, though, are strong, in particular Paul Daniel’s conducting. So it’s too bad there isn’t a music-only track, especially given the aggressive use of sound effects.The BBC includes a 20-minute interview with the British Bernstein authorized biographer, Humphrey Burton, spreading misinformation, such as the idea that Bernstein was the first notable American composer not to study in Europe (neglecting, among others, Ives, Cowell, Cage and Harrison).

“The Medium,” a 1951 film based on the Broadway production, is a classic, arguably representing Menotti’s finest moment as composer, librettist and director. Shot in Rome in the neorealist style of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, the film injects a mystical overtone into gritty urban city life. Marie Powers re-creates her Broadway success as the bogus medium Madame Flora, infected by her own deceptions. Anna Maria Alberghetti, in her film debut, is simply radiant as Baba’s daughter Monica. Menotti’s camera lacks propriety as it seems to consume dancer Leo Coleman, who portrays the mute gypsy boy, and the ending is predictably melodramatic. But this effort at veristic filmed opera is nonetheless a groundbreaker and an important precedent for documentary-style film operas such as the BBC’s “Trouble in Tahiti” or, more audaciously, the new film of John Adams’ “The Death of Klinghoffer.”

--Mark Swed

Florez hits the high notes

Juan Diego Florez: “Una furtiva lagrima.”

Donizetti and Bellini arias. Juan Diego Florez, tenor. Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. Riccardo Frizza, conductor. (Decca)

****

Florez follows up his thrilling Rossini album with this splendid collection of arias and opera scenes. He starts the album with Donizetti’s insouciant, trivial “Allegro io son,” but lifts it into the heights with his elegance, lightness of line and open-throated, vibrant vocalism, plus high Cs that just arrest the heart. He doesn’t have the heft of the young Pavarotti’s tenor, but Florez has similar gold in the throat. Every one of the 10 high Cs in Donizetti’s “Ah! mes amis” rings confidently. Occasionally, a troubling fast vibrato in the mid-range surfaces. One can only hope it’s not an early sign of faulty technique. Florez is scheduled to sing at a gala for Los Angeles Opera on May 13. Aficionados are salivating.

-- Chris Pasles

With musicality and technique

Liszt: Transcriptions: Bach, Wagner

Alain Lefevre, piano. (Analekta)

***

This high-achieving Canadian pianist has played often in Orange County -- mostly with the Pacific Symphony -- but not, according to our records, in L.A. This impressive CD ought to change that. Lefevre’s superior musicality and technique are abundantly effective in the A-minor Prelude and Fugue for Organ, and in the massive “Weinen, Klagen” Variations. The young pianist produces a most persuasive cantilena in Isolde’s “Love Death,” and in the “Evening Star” aria from “Tannhauser.” Alas, of all Liszt’s many successful and cogent operatic transcriptions, the “Tannhauser” Overture may be the most overblown. Lefevre plays it with great and easy skill, but listening to it is like watching someone mow a 1-acre lawn -- or iron 48 shirts.

-- Daniel Cariaga

A Passion for fewer voices

Bach: “St. Matthew” Passion.

Deborah York, soprano; Magdalena Kozena), alto; Mark Padmore, tenor; Peter Harvey, bass; Gabrielli Players, Paul McCreesh, conductor. (Archiv)

***

The “St. Matthew” Passion carries the weight of the world on its considerable shoulders. Yet it has been a long time since big equaled better in the performance of Baroque music -- what with the influence of stripped-down historically informed performance practice -- and this recording is a radical next step in Passion streamlining. It is the first “St. Matthew” to adapt controversial musicological research that asserts that there should be no choruses in Bach’s cantatas, Passions and masses. It employs, instead, eight soloists, four for each of the usual two choirs. The pure-toned Mark Padmore, for instance, does triple duty as tenor in the first chorus, soloist in tenor arias, and as the Evangelist. Likewise Peter Harvey adds the role of Jesus to his other bass duties. Some of the singing is exceptionally beautiful, particularly from alto Magdalena Kozena, and the choruses are bracing and illuminating. But the disadvantage is an overall theatrical lack of vocal variety.

McCreesh advocates light textures and flexible rhythms, and his Passion fits onto two CDs instead of the usual three. The period-instrument orchestra is strikingly colorful and fresh sounding. There is so much that is new in the sound of this unreverberant “St. Matthew” that it may remind listeners more of Stravinsky than Bach.

--M.S.