It was an interesting beginning-of-season. The big news, clearly, was the arrival of Lorin Maazel at the New York Philharmonic. Seventy-two years old, Maazel has replaced Kurt Masur, who was given the boot after eleven years. Maazel has had many tenures elsewhere: in Cleveland, in Pittsburgh, in Vienna (one could go on). Wherever he has been, he has created “controversy,” meaning that critics have chafed at his music-making, and players have chafed at his treatment of them. But he was the choice of New York Philharmonic personnel. Say this for union control, or near-union control: If you don’t like the guy with the stick, you have no one to blame but yourselves.
Maazel began his tenure in New York with an all-Beethoven concert: the Leonore Overture No. 3, op. 72b, and the Ninth Symphony. Thus, the conductor could not have picked more noble music with which to start. All through this concert, Maazel was thoroughly himself: that is, he was mannered, affected, and ultra-controlling; he was also smooth, skillful, and fascinating. Maazel may infuriate you, but he makes you pay attention to him. And, of course, he is not likely to change. He has come this far—why should he renovate himself? His New York tenure will surely be just like his others: If you liked those, you’ll like this; if you didn’t—well, his contract’s not forever.
After Maazel’s opening series, André Previn came in, with the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. This was a very good pair, as they are superb Ravelians and they played Ravel—the G-major concerto. Previn, like Maazel, is in his seventies, and doing noticeably fine work, chiefly as conductor and composer (he is also a fair pianist and an excellent writer of English prose). That he also just married the young German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter—his fifth wife—only makes him more interesting. He was once married to Mia Farrow. Woody Allen is—oh so weirdly—his son-in-law. Someone ought to write up Previn’s life (but then, no one would do it as well as he).
Following this series were two from Maazel himself. The first was with the twenty-year-old pianistic sensation Lang Lang. (Goes an old verse, “New York, New York/ The city so nice,/ They named it twice.”) Lang is a brilliant technician, and loaded with talent, but his Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 was marred by interpretive nonsense. Maazel, however, laid on a wonderful Sibelius Second Symphony, and a gripping “Night on Bald Mountain” (Mussorgsky). These works are familiar—even over-familiar—but the conductor managed to freshen them at every turn.
He did the same in the next series, whose big piece was the Tchaikovsky Fifth. Maazel can be quite idiosyncratic. He takes great liberties with tempos, and he employs the most unusual dynamics. And always, he emphasizes things in a score that you have never thought of, or had never really noticed. Again, he holds your attention, and will probably do so until he departs. Certainly the “Philharmonic family” is happy. Stuffy, demanding old Kurt is gone, and everyone is grinning. They should enjoy it while they can.
The Metropolitan Opera had a successful start as well. James Levine is still there, in the pit, in his twenty-ninth year with the company. He is set to take over the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2004, giving him the major symphonic podium he has long needed (in the opinion—unsolicited—of some of us). But he will stick, stubbornly, with the Met, although perhaps in reduced capacity.
The Met’s opening-night gala was both fun—gala-like—and profound. This is what the company delivers at its best: entertainment (we’re talkin’ opera, after all) and uplift. The Met did three separate acts of three different operas. They had one thing in common, Plácido Domingo, who retains his position as the house’s number-one guy, and the world’s only remaining supertenor, now that Luciano Pavarotti has more or less self-destructed.
The first act of the evening was rather touching, as it featured the veteran—very veteran—soprano Mirella Freni. The act was the second from Giordano’s Fedora, something that the Italian diva has fallen back on in her autumnal years. She still sounds like herself, if a greatly “mature” self. Her appearance was not an announced Met farewell, but it had the feel of one, and the audience, in its adoration and reluctance to let her go, seemed to suspect that it was.
The final two acts of the gala featured two of the most inspired pairings in opera today: Domingo and the Russian mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina as Samson and Dalila (in the Saint-Saëns opera), and Domingo and the American soprano Renée Fleming as Otello and Desdemona (in the Verdi opera). All sang lushly, convincingly, and well-nigh definitively. The Met is capable of showcasing the best, and on this night it did not fail.
Following this, the company offered Puccini’s Turandot, another opera by Giordano—Andrea Chénier—and Strauss’s Elektra. The third of these is one of James Levine’s specialties—although he has so many, it seems wrong to call them “specialties.” Over the years, he has had some great Elektras, Chrysothemises, and Klytämnestras: One thinks of Hildegard Behrens in the title role, and one thinks, perhaps especially, of Deborah Voigt as Chrysothemis. (Voigt, incidentally, in early October, sang the title role of Strauss’s “Egyptian Helen” with the American Symphony Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall—smashing.) For this run, however, Levine’s Elektra was the Wisconsin-born soprano Deborah Polaski, and his Chrysothemis was the Finnish wonder Karita Mattila. But the most gripping singer in this production? The Klytämnestra, Marjana Lipovsek, a Slovenian mezzo-soprano making a late-ish Met debut. Her every word, note, and move commanded.
Maestro Levine was in the pit for the opening-night gala (of course), for Elektra (of course), and for Chénier (whose title role was filled by the ultimate Chénier, Domingo). For the Turandot, however, Levine relinquished the pit to Carlo Rizzi, the Italian conductor who for many years led the Welsh National Opera. I’m reliably informed that Rizzi, married to a Welsh woman, actually speaks Welsh, with a pronounced Italian accent. A marvel, if not a first. He is a competent conductor, but not one to sweep you out of your chair—at least based on this Turandot. His tempos were quite “broad,” to use a polite word, and often the score dragged. This opera—Puccini’s last (and, indeed, one he left incomplete)—can have a symphonic feel, in the better performances. It sweeps, builds, and grips, from beginning to end. That feeling was lacking from Rizzi.
The Metropolitan Opera’s Turandot is a Zeffirelli Turandot, born in 1987. This is the sort of spectacle that you either love or hate. I am firmly, hopelessly, on the love side. I sometimes think of this Turandot as “The Wedding Cake Turandot,” because the Imperial Palace scenes—white, glittering, multi-layered—look like a wedding cake, at least as much as the monument to Victor Emmanuel in Rome does. These scenes are astounding in their pageantry and splendor, causing the senses to ache. The rest of the production is hardly less impressive. It is something out of Cecil B. DeMille, with a cast of thousands, making Puccini’s China seem teeming. This Turandot is one of the great visual delights in opera. And if you can’t indulge in a little excess, what is grand opera for?
The original Calaf in this production was Plácido Domingo, but he was otherwise engaged. Assuming the role was the man sometimes thought of as “the Russian Domingo,” Vladimir Galouzine, the tenor who made an enormous impression at the Met as Alexei in Prokofiev’s Gambler. Sadly, he was not so compelling as Calaf. Certainly his voice is special: bold, resplendent, heroic. Many people are eager to hear his Otello. But he was somewhat stiff as Calaf, with little lightness, grace, or “release”—that essential ingredient for an Italian, or Italianate, tenor. He opened up somewhat in Act II, but his big moment—the aria “Nessun dorma”—was a dud (to use technical musical language). It fell dead from his mouth. It was labored, artless, and not remotely Italianate. One felt that a Russian tenor was trying on Italian clothes, which were ill-fitting. Obviously, you don’t have to be Italian to be Calaf (see Domingo, Jussi Bjoerling, and a host of others), but you have to inhabit the style.
Our Turandot? Andrea Gruber, a stalwart American. She began with a case of the wobbles, in the tradition of many a Turandot before her, but she settled down to deliver an authoritative and memorable performance. She simply slew the aria “In questa reggia,” one of the most unusual Puccini ever wrote. From her throat emerged a kind of beautiful ugliness (as anyone who knows this aria will appreciate). Her intonation was faultless, and, in fact, everything about her singing was superbly controlled. The entire Riddle Scene—something out of Quiz Show—was palpably tense, thanks to Gruber (and thanks, too, to be fair, to Rizzi, and also to Galouzine). In the opera’s concluding pages—written (which is to say, finalized) by Franco Alfano—Gruber was overpowering, Nilssonesque. She was a battleship, but a gleaming and attractive one.
As for the opera itself, anyone who doubts Puccini’s greatness—who thinks of him as just a purveyor of classical pop—should consider Turandot. The opera is a strange mixture of flat-out genius and Oriental kitsch. In any case, as a friend of mine noted, the composer had come a long way from La Bohème. Then again, what’s wrong with La Bohème?
Over at Carnegie Hall, the season began with Daniel Barenboim; it will end with him too. In the first days of October, Barenboim conducted his orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, in three concerts; in June, donning his pianistic hat, he will play the Beethoven sonatas—all of them, all thirty-two. Oddly enough, Barenboim still seems like the “new” conductor of the CSO, the young man who took over from George Solti. The record shows, however, that he has been there since 1991, and that he is sixty. Barenboim’s tenure in Chicago has lasted as long as Kurt Masur’s in New York did.
The opening concert was all Spanish, or Spanish-inflected: the first half was devoted to Manuel de Falla, the second to Maurice Ravel (the “Rapsodie espagnole,” the “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” the “Alborada del gracioso,” and “Boléro”). This was a strangely leaden concert, with Barenboim heavy-handed and ungraceful as both conductor and pianist (in Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain”). Even “Boléro,” that sure winner, was sloppy and unappealing. The second concert featured Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with Radu Lupu, the grave Romanian, at the keyboard—also, from the orchestra alone, music of Wagner and Schoenberg.
The final concert boasted a great Bruckner symphony, the composer’s last, his Ninth. First, however, there were two shortish pieces, one from the Baroque, the other from today. Barenboim and his players began with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Those players numbered ten, with Barenboim at the harpsichord. Before going on, I might say that it was a pleasure to hear this music played on modern instruments (meaning, orchestral instruments)—so refreshing, in this age of “originalism,” full of scratches and hoots. In his farewell concert with the New York Philharmonic last summer, Kurt Masur did something cute. He announced, as an encore, Bach’s “Air on the G String” (as it is popularly known). He said that some people would shoot him as a criminal, for attempting such music with the New York Philharmonic, of all groups, but he was going ahead anyway. Everyone applauded and whooped. Masur’s was a thrilling act of sedition.
Barenboim and his Chicago ensemble did not cover themselves in glory, however. The Brandenburg’s first movement was unsettled: diffuse, soupy, and jumbled. It was perhaps under-rehearsed. At the keyboard, Barenboim played—improvisatorially, it seemed—a beautiful, imaginative “bridge” between movements. It had a nice sense of fantasia. The final movement, however, was absurdly fast: comically, intolerably so. The music never really had a chance to present itself. One wanted to holler, “Stop and enjoy this, would you?” Barenboim acted as though he had a train to catch.
The next short piece on the program was a section from Pierre Boulez’s 1971 work … explosante-fixe … (the ellipses are part of the title, and tell you that Boulez is a man who means business—always). Serving as soloist here was the CSO’s principal flutist, Mathieu Dufour, a fine and stylish player. Barenboim achieved, in the reduced—very reduced—orchestra before him, an admirable balance. And this is an intelligent piece: thought-provoking and not without beauty (no offense to Boulez and his crowd, for whom “beauty” can be something of a fighting word, as well as a swear word).
Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony is, in a way, a response to Beethoven, and his Ninth. The symphony—Beethoven’s—has hovered over many a composer, and Bruckner revered it, paying frank homage to it in his own Ninth. Daniel Barenboim knows this piece well, and he executed it magnificently. The Ninth is a long, unusual journey—Barenboim understands where it is going, and what it entails. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra did its best for him, playing like the virtuosic body it is. The first movement was majestic, deep, and sensuous (not a word often applied to Bruckner). Barenboim imparted a sense of inevitability. He was, indeed, going somewhere, purposeful. It’s a good thing, too, that his tempos were on the brisk side. This piece can’t afford to be sluggish—ever—because the sheer repetition and length would be deadly.
In the Scherzo, there were some technical rough spots—some awkward pizzicato playing, for example—but behind everything was the drive of a powerful, determined conductor. This movement was rather heavy—a persistent Barenboim trait—but no less effective for it. The Adagio is simply one of the greatest things in music, and it was soulful, hymn-like, and full of pity. Bruckner then rises in triumph, or at least steely resolution. All through this journey, the conductor had a path in mind. He would not deviate from it. Each tempo felt natural, if not demanded. Barenboim never stopped urging his players on, never let them flag, which is crucial in this monumental musical marathon.
There have been a lot of great Bruckner Ninths (along with complete flops, which have been more numerous). Barenboim’s was a proud one.
A few days after the Chicagoans left town, Cecilia Bartoli came in, for a program of Baroque music. She has lately recorded Vivaldi and Gluck; she gave a Carnegie Hall audience a good sampling of it, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment behind her.
About this world-renowned and beloved Italian mezzo-soprano, what is there left to say? Not much, but I will do some repeating: She is one of the most maddening musicians before the public today. She is as maddening as, say, Jessye Norman, and as maddening as was the pianist Vladimir Horowitz before them. What could these three possibly have in common, you ask? They are lavishly talented—and fabulously undisciplined and inconsistent, assaulting music as much as ennobling it. They also approach a score much as Justice Brennan approached the Constitution: as a “living document,” into which to pour a river of personal feelings, emotions, and beliefs—to hell with what the composer wanted, poor sap. The composer’s piece is only a vehicle for the grand performing Self.
Cecilia Bartoli can’t wreck Baroque music as much as she does later music—the strictures are too tight, even for her. She has less leeway. She cannot take a mile—merely a half-mile. I once heard her sing the Séguidille from Bizet’s Carmen. I knew it was the Séguidille only because the announcer on the radio said so, and because some of the notes resembled those in the original version. Bartoli can’t render, say, Handel’s “Dove sei” unrecognizable—but she can try.
In Carnegie Hall, she revealed the vocal technique that is unique to her: She can be amazingly hooty, and her passagework is often extremely detached. Interpretively, she is ultra-dramatic, outsize. She’s like a mime: When she’s sad, she is very, very sad; when she’s happy, she’s very, very happy. Not much is modulated. Or, as I’ve said before, she’s like a beautiful woman—a naturally beautiful woman—who applies way too much make-up, appearing clownish. You want to wipe off the make-up and say, “Sober up, girl! You’re beautiful enough!”
And yet, she is undeniably a thrilling performer. The voice is lovely, and it is fantastically flexible—acrobatic. For example, she can effect huge leaps, reminiscent of Marilyn Horne, who of course had a bigger instrument, and infinitely more discipline, but who could execute the same acrobatics. When Bartoli, at one point, went from a low B to a high B—two octaves away—I could not suppress a frisson. Her exhibitionism can be exasperating: She held one G for what seemed like a half-hour, before resuming the aria. You would scald a student for doing this. But …
I will close with a confession—one a critic really shouldn’t make. Often, I have sat in a darkened concert hall, listening to Cecilia Bartoli, and thought: “She’s the most vulgar woman alive. But, heaven help me, I love it.”