For the past many years, Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming
have been an unbeatable Otello and Desdemona. In fact, this
has been one of the outstanding pairings in opera. (Another,
I might say, is the Samson and Delilah of Domingo and Olga
Borodina.) But Domingo was absent from the recent revival of
Otello at the Metropolitan Opera; instead, Fleming was
paired with the big South African tenor, Johan Botha. And
that proved a potent pairing, too.
The character of Otello, you will recall, begins with a
bang: “Esultate!” he hollers, at the beginning of the opera.
Only he must not holler: The cry must be huge but musical.
And this, Botha accomplished. He was admirable in the rest
of the opera, too, mighty and resplendent. He was also
sensitive, when Verdi called for that. Botha faltered now
and then, but this is a big and challenging part, and Botha
handled it manfully. He was the blend of power and beauty
that we want in this role.
I thought of something Robert Merrill once said, when
recalling a particular performance with Richard Tucker. (I
believe he was speaking of a duet at a gala, and I believe
the duet was from La forza del destino.) Tucker was on
fire, he said, “really booming it out there.” And that’s
what Botha did, in this Otello: boom it out there.
Some critics, you might agree, make all too much of the
question of looks in opera: Does the soprano look the part?
Does the tenor? Other critics may make too little of
looks—and I probably fall into the latter camp. I am
hesitant even to raise the question of Johan Botha’s size.
But it is often on people’s minds, and lips, and there is no
disputing that, when you get Botha, you get his girth. Nor
is he anything like the actor Domingo is (few are). But he
is one of the most remarkable tenors going. And opera is
primarily a musical event.
I might also point out that the world is not exactly overrun
today with Otellos (or with Walthers in Meistersinger).
Let us be grateful for the South African.
Now to the question of Fleming: If I said that she was
herself, in this Otello, would you know what I meant?
Surely. She was utterly Flemingesque, including “achingly
lyrical,” to use a cliché. Intelligently, she varied the
width of her voice—the width of its “ribbon,” unspooling
from her mouth. She sang easily, as if she were merely
saying hello. And let it be remembered that she is more than
lush and creamy—more than a provider of velvet. She can
hurl sound, when she wishes (and when Verdi wishes).
Of course, there were some mannerisms. For example,
Fleming’s Willow Song was a little gulpy and impure. But I
never tire of saying that one man’s mannerisms are another
man’s endearing characteristics. And the Willow Song was
perfectly respectable, if idiosyncratic. And the following
Ave Maria was sublime.
It has been an exceptionally good season for Renée Fleming,
“America’s Sweetheart,” I have called her. I caught her one
evening (or was it afternoon?) in La traviata. She was so
good as to be utterly devastating. Her singing and acting
were impeccably fused, resulting in a once-a-decade
experience. (I am merely estimating.) And the Metropolitan
Opera is according her a big honor next season, devoting its
opening gala to her: She will sing excerpts from three of
her most celebrated roles: Violetta, Manon (Massenet), and
the Strauss Countess (meaning, Capriccio).
But back to the Otello in question: Iago was the Italian
baritone Carlo Guelfi, a standout in this part. He is
smooth, insinuating, and so, so villainous. Guelfi has an
attractive voice, which he deploys artfully. He suffered
from a few wobbles, but no more than a few. The technique is
solid: Guelfi even stands in a way that tells you he will
sing well.
And not to be neglected is the man in the pit, Semyon
Bychkov. He is a Russian—or Russian American—who has had
a many-citied career. That career includes Grand Rapids,
Michigan. And I had never heard him so impressive as in
Otello. From the beginning, he was fully engaged,
directing that storm with passion and sense, and the entire
rest of the opera the same way. Otello had urgency,
tension, and horror. Bychkov did nothing extreme, but he
never did anything too cautious either. The drama flowed
through his baton. And the Met orchestra seemed to enjoy
playing for him—a commendation.
There are some operas that are unwatchable. What I mean is,
if they’re done right, you can’t watch them, they are so
awful. One of them is Otello. Another is Traviata.
Another is Butterfly, and another is Wozzeck. When they
are performed to maximum effect, you can’t stand it, and you
long to bolt the house. So it was with this Otello at the
Met.
A quick shift of gears, to discuss the Kronos Quartet. You
know this group: avant-garde, radical, experimental. Those
are the words typically applied to them. They like to
champion new music, and the more political the better, it
seems. They are the type to exalt the writings of Noam
Chomsky. And they are a worthy group of musicians, whatever
they choose to play.
Allow me a brief story. A dozen years ago, I reviewed the
Kronos’s latest album, Howl, U.S.A. It was filled with
political pieces, using tapes of J. Edgar Hoover, I. F.
Stone, and—as you would guess from the album title—Allen
Ginsberg. In my review, I talked about how the Kronos loved
to fuse music and politics; I, on the other hand, was a
strict-separation man. I think that art should be free from
politics—or relatively free—especially given that politics
gobbles up so much of the rest of life. As a rule, I don’t
bring politics into music; I comment on it when others do
the bringing, or intruding.
My review of Howl, U.S.A. began, “If you happen to be
hungry for the Stalin-era spirit expressed in music, you
have to turn to the Kronos Quartet and its latest
recording …” And it concluded,
it’s a pity that the Kronos Quartet should
descend into the
fever swamp, because it plays extraordinarily well, and
while the world has more than enough political ideologues,
it does not suffer from a surfeit of first-rate chamber
groups. If the Kronos-ers were merely a bunch of radicalized
mediocrities, coasting
on the arts dole, their obsessions
would be simply risible—instead of sharply disappointing.
Well, a young journalist read that review, and attacked its
author for being obsessed with politics—for refusing to
separate the musical and the political! He even said that my
thrust was Stalinist! Of course, this was exactly
backwards: I was advocating resistance to the politicization
of music. The young journalist committed maybe the most
spectacular misreading I know of. And where is he today? He
is the editor—the editor—of one of the most important
intellectual magazines in America.
That’s our system for you—a lovely meritocracy, no?
At any rate, the Kronos Quartet played at Zankel Hall, the
downstairs venue at Carnegie Hall. The Carnegie Hall people
want Zankel to be a home of the funky, and the Kronos surely
qualified. They had mood lighting, microphones, speakers:
the accoutrements of a rock concert. They also came out in
cool-kid clothing, reassuring the audience, “This is not the
Guarneri Quartet.” We knew.
They began with a piece of peculiar origin. “Night of the
Vampire” is a song recorded by the Moontrekkers, a British
band, in the early 1960s. It has been arranged for the
Kronos by Harry Whitney, a student at the San Francisco
Conservatory. The music sounds like something for a horror
movie, or for Halloween. It is simple, repetitive—and not
unpleasant. Not so horrifying. As they played, the
Kronos-ers had their funky lighting going on. They have more
in common with Virgil Fox—the flashy mid-century
organist—than they may care to admit. This string quartet
is showbiz.
By the way, the evening’s program notes had a word about the
record producer for the Moontrekkers: Joe Meek. We learned
that he “committed suicide by shooting himself and his
landlady.” That’s an interesting way to put it—nothing
about murder.
The second piece on the program was a suite from a movie
score. In 2000, Clift Mansell wrote the score to Requiem
for a Dream; some years later, David Lang arranged the
suite for the Kronos. Lang is a co-founder of Bang on a Can,
very much a Kronos-like organization. The suite, like the
Moontrekker bit, is simple and repetitive. It is also
earnest, pretentious, and dull—at least in my judgment. I
thought of kids in a garage, smoking dope, playing around:
thinking they were cool and deep. The third movement of the
suite is called Lux Aeterna, and it strains for
spirituality. It does not quite get there. But it is
pleasant, innocuous—kind of bubblegum.
Next we had a piece by Fernando Otero, a composer born in
Argentina, now living in New York. This was El Cerezo, or
The Cherry Tree. It is tango-y, infectious—not a
masterpiece, but a piece with something to say, something to
offer. And it does not overstay its welcome.
We then had a three-movement work called Widows & Lovers,
by Aviya Kopelman, who began life in Russia and immigrated
to Israel. The outer movements of her work are White Widow
and Black Widow. The first refers to a kind of marijuana
(perfect), and the second to the spider. In between,
Kopelman places her Lovers. The work shows skill, with its
alternation between disquiet and peace. It deserves a second
hearing.
After intermission, a new work by John Adams, maybe the most
honored classical composer in the world today. Commissioned
by the Kronos, this was Fellow Traveler, which Adams
dedicated to Peter Sellars, the radical stage director. Like
El Cerezo, it is a brief work, and it is also
Adamsesque—thoroughly. It is colorful, playful, jazzy. And
druggy, driven, busy. A melody wants to peep out, midst the
churning below. The piece has a little engine, a motor, that
keeps going and going. This is an Adams characteristic.
From Iran came a lullaby, or rather an arrangement of a
lullaby: by Jacob Garchik, an American trombonist and
composer (not the most usual of combinations). The lullaby
is marked by Old World wailing, tolerable for a minute or
two. And the program notes are worth quoting a little. They
complained that the Iranian government gets a bad rap, in
part because “the West’s political agenda and media
portrayal … are preoccupied with fundamentalist mullahs,
oil reserves, and nuclear proliferation.” Yes, the thought
of Armageddon—promised Armageddon—will preoccupy you a
bit. Those notes continued,
It’s true that when the Islamic Revolution swept
away the Shah’s regime in 1979, in an excess of
fundamentalist zeal, strict restrictions were placed on
music. But apart from a ban on Westernized pop music, these
restrictions were swiftly dropped. It’s often forgotten that
the Iranian Revolution was as much about reclaiming
traditional Persian culture as espousing an Islamist agenda.
Indeed, the long-term musical effect of the revolution has
been a revival of Persian classical music, which had
suffered in the face of heavy Westernization during the
Shah’s regime.Folk music in Iran is a strong living tradition and has
probably also been boosted by the “back-to-roots” aspects of
the revolution …
This is a stunning apologia for the Iranian regime, and a
dubious one, especially where the revolutionaries’ regard
for “traditional Persian culture” is concerned. It proves
the old point that anything will be defended, as long as
it’s anti-Western. Consider just one practice of the Iranian
regime: It stones to death young girls for the crime of
having been gang-raped. And, incidentally, the Kronos
Quartet—and its composer friends —would not last three days
in Iran.
The program closed with … hold me, neighbor, in this
storm … by Aleksandra Vrebalov, who comes from the
former Yugoslavia. This is one of those pieces that seek to
depict the Balkan conflict. (Another is Christos Hatzis’s
String Quartet No. 2, called “The Gathering.” It was
reviewed in these pages three years ago.) In Vrebalov’s
piece, we hear church bells and Muslim calls to prayer. We
also hear drums and grunts—I thought of Robert Bly and the
men’s movement. We hear music that may remind you of
Fiddler on the Roof, and I believe I heard a Romanian
Rhapsody (Enescu). The work is a little long, and maybe a
tad kitschy—but it holds interest, which is something.
And whether the music was bad or worthwhile, the Kronos
Quartet played very well, as usual. This is a talented group
of musicians who have charted their own course and been
handsomely rewarded for it. You think they realize how lucky
they are to live and work in America?
Finally, move upstairs from Zankel Hall into the Carnegie
building’s main auditorium: There, the Vienna
Philharmonic made its annual three-concert stand. The
VPO has no permanent conductor, as you recall. Instead,
it has a never-ending series of guests. And, for these
concerts, the orchestra’s guest was Valery Gergiev, the
mercurial Russian conductor. (If I had a nickel for every
time I’ve called Gergiev “mercurial,” I’d have maybe twenty
bucks.) The mercurial Russian and the venerable Austrian
orchestra make a striking pair.
Two of the three concerts were all-
orchestral, meaning that
they had no soloist—which is unusual. The first concert
consisted of Berlioz, Wagner, and Debussy, ending with La
Mer. Gergiev’s account of this work was not especially
French. It
had aspects of Russian Romanticism, and strong,
virile Russian Romanticism at that: Gergiev would conduct a
Rimsky-Korsakov showpiece little differently. But, whatever
the case, La Mer in these hands was awfully exciting.
The second concert began with another Debussy masterpiece,
this one the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The Vienna
Philharmonic made its characteristic sounds, or some of
them. This orchestra is impossibly beautiful, elegant,
magical. It is always kissing your ears, and, indeed, you
sometimes want it more assaultive (in a Shostakovich
symphony, for example). We would expect the VPO to have a
master flute, and so it does. And the Prélude could
certainly use one.
Overall, Gergiev’s reading was warm and sensitive, but it
was not quite scintillating. Indeed, the music was sometimes
labored, unflowing, taking place line by line, rather than
in a totality. (You know what I mean, I trust.) This is not
very much like Gergiev. And the closing pizzicatos were not
together—which is not very much like the VPO.
The one concerto soloist of the three concerts was Yefim
Bronfman. And he played a little-known work by a well-known
composer: the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor by Prokofiev.
We know the Concerto No. 1, a popular, freewheeling effort.
We know the Concerto No. 3, his most popular, and one of the
most popular of all concertos. The Fourth is not very often
played: It is one of the left-hand concertos commissioned by
Paul Wittgenstein. And the Fifth, like the Second, is hardly
known at all.
Sticking with the Second, why is it so infrequently played?
Is it because the music is deemed unworthy? Or is it because
the concerto is monstrously hard, accessible to only a few
pianists? I suspect the latter is the case.
Nothing is inaccessible to Yefim Bronfman: He has one of the
most accomplished techniques in the world, to go with a deep
musicianship. The last time I had heard this concerto, it
was played by Bronfman—with the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra, conducted by Mariss Jansons. In Carnegie Hall.
And I will never forget his traversal of another Concerto
No. 2—Bartók’s. Bronfman dispatched it with a facility that
I would have thought impossible. Furthermore, I might
mention the recital that Bronfman gave in Carnegie Hall
earlier this season. He chose for it just about the hardest
music
extant: Gaspard de la nuit, Islamey … And yet
technical considerations were always secondary to musical
ones. The rarity of this cannot be overstressed.
With Gergiev and the VPO, he did for Prokofiev’s Second all
that one could. He was propulsive, athletic, commanding. He
was brittle, in the way that Prokofiev demands—but not too
much so. He was sassy, petulant, arrogant. Arrogance is one
of Prokofiev’s trademark musical qualities. In fact, few
composers inject it as much as he does. In all, Bronfman
wrestled with this concerto as a man would a great,
ferocious beast—and he prevailed (Bronfman, that is).
Gergiev was right with him, leading the VPO electrically.
The orchestra did not exactly kiss our ears in this music;
but it might be incapable of real, rude brashness.
Bronfman played an encore for the audience (semi-delirious),
and what did he choose? A Scarlatti sonata—the one in C
minor, K. 11. He of course had to do this: to prove that he
was more than a keyboard-burner. And to add musical
contrast, of course. He played with the refinement we can
expect of him. And standing to the side of the stage, with
his arms folded, was Gergiev. I had never seen this before:
a conductor present for a concerto soloist’s encore. Except
for once: when Simon Rattle sat in the back of the orchestra
to listen to Lang Lang.
I think Gergiev merely wanted to hear Bronfman play some
more—and I don’t blame him.
He ended this concert with a Tchaikovsky symphony, the last
one, No. 6 in B minor, called the “Pathétique.” This was an
overwhelmingly good performance. The VPO put a little
Russian grain in its sound. And the orchestra was in best
form, tonally and otherwise. Gergiev was in best form, too:
judging the music superbly, allowing it huge drama—but
never being histrionic. The second movement, that swirling
dance, was fast, but not rushed. And it avoided all
airy-fairiness. The third movement, that kind of march, was
appropriately jolting and noisy—but not bombastic. And the
Finale, with that perfect marking, “Adagio lamentoso,” was
duly affecting.
My colleague Fred Kirshnit refers to this symphony as “the
longest suicide note in history.” There is a case.
For an encore, Gergiev and the VPO played more Tchaikovsky:
the Panorama from Sleeping Beauty: smooth, effortless,
natural. Unimprovable on. I had a thought during this
encore—a thought I had had before when listening to the
VPO, and also to the Berlin Philharmonic, for that matter:
They are not overrated. They are coasting on neither past
performance nor hype.
Before leaving this concert, a brief word on concert
etiquette: All through the “Pathétique,” the man in front
and to the right of me tapped on his BlackBerry (or whatever
his handheld device was) with a stylus. I am unusually
tolerant when it comes to concert-hall and opera-house
behavior. I am not a scold or a cop. But this, we can agree,
is intolerable.
The final Gergiev/VPO concert began with three quick knocks
at the door. What do I mean? This was Verdi’s overture to
La forza del destino. And not only were those knocks
quick, the entire overture was: and tight (in the good
sense), bristling, and thrilling. Gergiev was in one of
those electric moods. Actually, it was continuing, from the
previous two concerts. Then came Les Préludes (Liszt), one
of my least favorite pieces in the standard orchestral
repertory. Why am I mentioning this? Who cares what I like
and like less? I mention it because I never appreciated Les
Préludes so much as I did on this Sunday afternoon. Gergiev
and the VPO were incisive, tight (again), and bouncing. They
were colorful, undawdling, and fresh.
When this conductor gets wizardly, look out—and he had an
orchestra that could follow his every tic and flutter.
The concert, and the VPO stand, ended with another
Tchaikovsky symphony. It could not have been the last,
because that had been done; instead, it was the
second-to-the-last, No. 5. I would have ended the stand with
the Sixth, putting the Fifth in the middle. But Gergiev, or
whoever was responsible, had other ideas. And the mercurial
maestro from Russia tore up the Fifth. What I mean is, the
work was extraordinarily intense, with a current always
running through it. I will offer just one detail: Seldom has
the underpinning of the Waltz sounded so scurrying or
interesting.
And, as I listened, a thought occurred, very strongly:
Gergiev was reveling in this, reveling in the opportunity to
conduct this orchestra, this fabulous machine in front of
him. Everything technical was in the bag; the VPO was not
going to make any mistakes. Gergiev could just do his wizard
thing, and the performance would be immaculate. It is not so
with his Kirov Orchestra, or with his other orchestras. No
offense to them: It’s just that the VPO is something
else.
What an inspired combination, don’t you think? Gergiev’s
wizardry, electricity, and imagination; the VPO’s elegance,
good sense, and technical proficiency.
There was something wrong with the Tchaikovsky Fifth,
however: the last movement. It was so fast, there was no
room for its majesty and regality. Debussy’s Prélude had
been subpar, too. But the three concerts, altogether, were
of such high quality, one could hardly complain. And the
last concert was graced by two finely played encores: Josef
Strauss’s “Libelle” polka, full of class; and another polka
by the same Strauss, “Ohne Sorgen!” This one took off like a
bullet—kind of a wacky Viennese bullet—and never lost its
energy.
In the course of these concerts, I thought of a couple of
things that Gergiev said to me during a public interview in
Salzburg last summer. (I keep talking about thoughts.) He
said that the biggest sin a conductor can commit is to be
boring—which is also the second- and third-biggest sins. He
also talked about how people—stupid ones—mock and belittle
Tchaikovsky: and Puccini, and even Wagner, and even Mozart.
Of course, you can perform these composers in an insipid
way. But that’s your fault, not theirs. And that is so very
true.
I find myself with a new conclusion about Gergiev. I’m not
sure whether he has changed or I have—I suspect the former,
because all performers grow (at least the good ones do). For
years, I thought of Gergiev as an interesting conductor, and
of course a mercurial one. Very uneven. One of every five
concerts—or one of every five opera performances—would be
great. The others would be mediocre or duds. Now I think of
Gergiev as more like a great conductor who has an off night
every few concerts or so. And that is much better.
And I will leave you with a little story—one that
underlines the power of music. To the second VPO/Gergiev
concert, I took a teenager, who had not heard many concerts.
After the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, she turned to
me and said—with a look of absolute conviction on her
face—“That is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard.”
Yes, it is wonderful, isn’t it? And that reminded me of an
event many years before: I took a friend to The Marriage of
Figaro. I don’t think he had heard classical music of any
kind. After the overture, he turned to me and said, “That’s
the single greatest thing I have ever heard in my life.” And
he would be hard pressed to improve on it.