Jonas Kaufmann & Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Moscow, part II

If these two don 't make you start you week on a high, nothing will ;-)))



Hvorostovsky & Kaufmann - Alvaro & Don Carlo's duet




Jonas Kaufmann - Flower Song from Carmen




Hvorostovsky & Kaufmann - Pearl Fishers duet




Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Iago's "Credo"




And last, the cheeky but very well sung bit at the end:

Hvorostovsky & Kaufmann - O Sole Mio



BRAVISSIMI!!!

Jonas Kaufmann & Dmitri Hvorostovsky Moscow, 16 December 2008

Very special treat thanks ( very very very much!!) to the videos provided by frufruJ:

In his series of concerts with friends/ singers Dmitri organised this concert past December in Moscow. I have to say at the time i almost went to see this concert, i planned for it and all, but in the end the travel plans were impossible and it just seemed a far too crazy impulse ;-)))... Seeing these videos i regret my decision!! It would have been wonderful! But at least we have these videos and i have to say i absolutely love the way their voices intertwine. And they have some amazing chemistry going on and must have had at least as much fun as the audience.

I hope in the future we will get to see them on stage together more often :-)

So here they are ( the videos are available in high quality, so can be watched in full screen:

Hvorostovsky, Kaufmann, Shvec - Scene from Don Carlo 1/3 (Act2, Convento di San Giusto)



Hvorostovsky, Kaufmann, Shvec - Scene from Don Carlo 2/3




Hvorostovsky, Kaufmann, Shvec - Scene from Don Carlo 3/3



Hvorostovsky & Kaufmann - Rodrigo's Death scene 1/2



Hvorostovsky & Kaufmann - Rodrigo's Death scene 2/2



Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Urna Fatale (Verdi: La Forza del Destino)

Trovatore at ROH with Roberto, Dmitri and Sondra

Photo Catherine Ashmore


Update:
I sometimes like to add things or change things based on discussion with friends :-) Not that my opinions have changes significantly, although sometimes they may, but i realise sometimes i haven't said all I mean or exactly as i intended. And i realised that although Sondra got my enthusiastic Bravos the other night, this might have not really come through in my account of the evening. She most definitely is the most exciting soprano voice i have heard for quite some time! Her voice does make the music swipe you away and i am very much looking forward to her upcoming Verdi CD! I just think she can be even better if she adds more feeling to the fascinating tone of her voice :-)
.............................................................................................................

Too much to do, too little time, but this should really not go unmentioned. The run is sold out so something attracts people to Trovatore. I'm guessing it is good old Verdi, well known tunes, intense conflicts, crazy plots, but who can resist it? I know there are those out there who say Verdi, bah! I'm not one of them :-) I knew opera through Verdi, in fact i grew up with it. It may make me smile, but the buzz his music gives me is unbelievable and has never faded from day one!

So for Verdi i went to see this. Of course it is almost unavoidable to have those big recordings in your head, but i am pretty good at putting those away when sitting there live.... If only this production wouldn't have tried to kill the tension.... I'm not the unconditional supporter of modern productions, i probably tend to err more on the traditional side, i just love period costumes! But pleaseee.... where was the director? Where was the choreograph? At times it felt like the singers were left to create their own movements, think about what to do while on stage. Trovatore is not one where you want to burden the singers with those decisions on top of everything else, the score keeps them busy enough!

Never mind the huge sets, it felt way to much like standing about aimlessly. Don't get me wrong, this is not an opera to do yoga while singing, but maybe singing to each other rather than away from each other might have helped at times. You can pull something like this off when the singing is so out of this world that you don't care what is on stage. But we didn't have Corelli, Bastianini, Tebaldi or whoever on stage, nor do i want to resurrect the dead in any way. I don't think today Verdi, or any other operas/composers can live on singing alone. On the other hand, today we have singers more willing to engage with the stories, with greater flexibility in terms of what they are requested to do on stage. So give them something to do!

Anyways, rant over... but it is the reason why the first act didn't really deliver for me. It started off well, but was dragged of energy in the convent scene.... useless backdrop and aimless standing around singing if ever i have lived through one... Thankfully somehow the 2nd part came alive, due mostly to more engagement from the singers. And to an excellent chorus scene spiced with some amazing fighting, while at the same time beautifully carrying the musical line. Bravo to them!! Easily one of the most entertaining scenes of the night, well prepared, well rehearsed, natural. ( This is another reason while i live period stagings in ROH, where else can one still enjoy beautiful armory and elegant fighting? keep it coming!)

But in the end it is all about the singing, isn't it? The one i was least sure of proved to be a pleasant surprise and definitely rounded up the evening musically for me. Alagna and Manrico? I had more than some doubts... he proved me wrong. Ok, he isn't perfect but i haven't heard an ideal Marico as such these days. He does an excellent job of applying his sunny, lyrical voice to this. Surprisingly, it did not sound overstretched and the evening definitely gained in musical quality from his flowing lines and warm tone.


I never knew he could heft such volume! Ok, maybe some more piano would be nice, but next to Sondra Rodvanovsky someones piani may become inaudible ;-)



Photo Catherine Ashmore

I think overall Roberto and his voice are in better shape than a few years ago, probably his health as well. I am glad he feels and looks better, he comes across more energetic and his singing is very good indeed. Especially considering how much he has sung and what he has been singing. He was also the only one who came buzzing on stage from the first note, who moved around, elastically and purposefully, even if it seemed more like his take on Marico than anyones direction. Also good he kept the energy going till the end, bravo to him for singing the whole Pira. Not that i care much for the Pira, or the fact that it was a B :-) Well done to him and to my ears, i'd rather take a sound lower note than a cracker higher one, thank you very much!

I always liked Alagna, but i haven't heard him for many years! I liked what i heard the other night and also what i saw. Add to this the lively, enjoyable conversation the other night and i am content to have rediscovered "my"Roberto, the same crazy, enthusiastic, passionate and engaged singer i heard so many years ago. He's not perfect, but i do believe he is a generous artist, and that for me counts more. I look forward to hearing more of him in next seasons and i hope he stays in as good a form as he is these days.


copyright Tavel Antonov

As the ladies next to me where saying, who can decide between these two? Indeed :-) It's not half as much fun if Luna is not as good or equally as exciting a character as Manrico. Give it to Hvorostovsky to restore the balance :-) Ok, he might not be Marlon Brando on stage ( acting-wise i mean ;-))) but his natural elegance and charismatic stage presence fit Luna like a glove and make it work. Some gorgeous display of jaw-dropping breath control and warmth of tone puts the cherry on the cake. His "Balen" was beautiful and very well received by the public.

And his long duet in the last act with Leonora had enough character to make me happy, as it is definitely my favourite part of Trovatore. Due probably to the fact that they have been singing this for a while together Sondra and Dmitri really made the sparks fly :-)


Photo Catherine Ashmore

And ok, they made you wonder why oh why does she swallow the poison, stupid gal! I tell you, the two sitting next to me were contemplating a totally different decision if faced with the circumstances ;-))

But as it is about the singing, i have to say they managed the scene beautifully and Hvorostovsky not only was able to match Sondra's power, but impose a considerable and credible amount of threat in his singing.

The ladies of the night... Sondra is a class of her own, what a beautiful and satisfying Verdi voice :-) I also appreciated that she can not only belt it out, but creates some great crescendi and descrescendi, a few tender piani here and there, promising to do wonderful things with her voice in the future. Beautiful sound is not all and both her and Hvorostovsky could do with a bit more text interpretation, but as far as their sounds come, there aren't any better ones these days for these roles :-) However, while he made Luna credible, i wasn't entirely sure of her connection to Alagna's Manrico... (Direction, direction... )

Azucena is for me one of the most amazing mezzo roles/scores! I love her and Amneris, i envy what Verdi wrote for them :-) (they are the only ones who ever make me wish i could sing a note, even under the shower... but alas... ;-))))Can't say that Malrgozata did it for me.. she can deliver solid singing all right, but her top register makes my ears hurt, that is how harsh it sounds. Just when you want the music to soar it makes you flinch... Probably not everyone's impression, but i personally don't like harsh female voices. Thus, the "il rogo" which plays such an important part in this score, had a totally different effect on me than expected. Nothing wrong though with the rest of her voice and she had brilliant full and round low notes (here is me hoping she can iron out some things for the future... )

Monika-Evelin Liiv's Ines was a nice surprise, pity we couldn't hear more of her! Mikhail Petrenko was probably the one on stage who did the most acting, with good effect, pity his voice wasn't as good as the acting...

I think Rizzi managed to keep the ensembles together, which is a thing i think he generally does well thinking back also to his Matile. The pace was alert, but the slower bits were a tad bland, maybe trying to accommodate the breath of the singers just a tiny bit too much? ( although i am all for not overpowering them... )

It was all in all an enjoyable night with some brilliant moments, but somehow i have to agree with other people in saying that the bits were sometimes better than the whole. The whole lacked just that bit of umph to became truly excellent. Maybe also due to the continuously interrupting production and the lack of direction. This is supposed to feel like a car crash just happening and it was more like a skating and skittering along the road at times.

Still, even this is not totally hopeless, there is a wonderful effect with Manrico singing the miserere from the top of the auditorium, lushiously flowing down sound! And the final scene of Luna stabbing Manrico, and then holding him splayed in his arms when he finds out it was his brother...Picture perfect image right there! And the grabbing and pulling and dragging between Leonora and Luna in the last duet is also not for the faint hearted ;-)))

I would have liked to see it again, but it is very much sold out... but i so love the music i might give the one in Barcelona a try this autumn, they have loads and loads of it there later in the year ;-))))

Back in business

I was going to jump straight back into music but i thought maybe some of you might want to know if in the meantime i had been abducted by aliens or something....

Sadly, no such thing happend...now, that would have been something to write about!!!

I just moved from the Auld Reekie to the Big Smoke... Or for those of you not from round here from here :

to here:

I won't bore you with horror details of the move, just take my advice: if you are thinking of moving, unless it is a matter of life and death...forget it!!!!

As to Edinburgh.... I will always love it and although there is not a drop of Scottish blood in my veins, there will always be a wee corner of my heart which has become Scottish and will stay that way forever :-)

I don't know if i will ever love London.... it will never have the spicy homey smell of malt... it will always be dusty and crowded ...or maybe i am just too provicial... i guess, in the end i will learn to live with it. And whenever i will find myself disliking something about it, i will just keep reminding myself that at least i adore one part of it, which is the ROH :-)

Inbetween the boxes and the stress there was music, because there was the Festival! It began with Hvorostovsky, but luckily it didn't end there: there was the London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev and the fascinating Prokofiev, Leonidas Kavakos and Tatjana Vassiljeva, there was the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov, Ades and Messiaen, there was Christine Schafer. I promise to come back to them and tell you all about it. I am sorry, it will be old news by then, but at least it will be good news.

It was a long, long and pretty cold summer, in which i terribly missed the warm voice of Jonas Kaufmann. The radiobroadcast of the Montpellier concert with Nathalie Dessay provided some relief and i wrote and wrote and wrote about it (unfortunately in every prossible language but English and not in my own blog :-( I wish i was a less distracted person! I might try and at least leave here a post with links to some of my digressions on the subject). The preview on his upcoming Romeo next year was amazing to say the least! Even I was surprised by the utter sweetness, tenderness and dreamlike quality of his love duet with Juliet!!! And the bits from Manon with Nathalie almost drove me to buying a Lottery ticket in the hope of being able to make that trip to Chicago... Alas, i am poorer then ever (a move does that to one's budget!) but thanks to generous American sponsors we all will be able to indulge in the premiere of the event via radio ( check out Marion's page for details). I will stop myself from going on about the subject, but don't worry, you will not be dissapointed! as i am sure rivers will flow from my pen after the broadcast :-)

But i did say i was back in business and i am still talking in past tense...

Yesterday night the moving blues gave way to joy thanks to my personal kick off of the London music season. In this post i will just say one name: Joyce DiDonato!

PS Thanks so very very much to everyone who showed, told, wrote me their support and sorry if i was a pain from time to time...it is all over now :-) And thanks to all of you, i didn't jump of a bridge, down a hill or even down the waaay to narrow stairs of my house ;-)))

Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Russian passion at the Edinburgh festival

My festival started with a bang!! And probably started the way it should have ended, in absolute mind blowing, soul filling superlatives!

Translation: I experienced my first live “song evening”! And it was to be a memorable one, by the hand of Dmitri Hvorostovsky and in Russian no less! I say if you decide to do something new, do it properly!

Usher Hall was packed but one cannot say it was dressed for the evening... It looked more like a bombed place where big holes in the walls were hidden behind wooden panels. However, it is still a miracle they are able to hold concerts there at all considering that just a few days ago the place was totally uninhabitable.

In the middle of a song we also heard a loud bang, which could be either of – the first set of firework at this year’s Military tattoo or the workers dropping some boxes 3 floors down. Hvorostovsky reckoned the roof didn’t tremble too much during the evening ;-)

Considering that my vocabulary in Russian is reduced to “vodka” , which I don’t like, and “spasiva” which probably sounds like everything else but thanks, I was quite apprehensive about enjoying the evening. So in order to prevent linguistic frustration I did my homework and read all possible translations of what would be the program of the night; some I did not find at all but I armed myself with trust in the wonderful performer which I had first heard in a ROH Traviata.

But I found that homework wasn’t necessary, because the artist translated with his voice, tone, gestures and gazes all you would ever need to know about Russian. It did give me however the freedom to ignore the program pages in my lap and tie my eyes to Dmitri. Some would think that “fun” is not the right word for describing an evening of Russian songs, but it is exactly what I experienced. They are often depicted as being an endless road to depression, but I found them much more intense and multifaceted than that. Yes there is winter cold, and sadness about lives’ struggle, there is hope of end and fear of betrayal but there is so much more and so much more powerful. And with such a passionate and consummate performer the songs grew to impressive dimensions. Even if you didn’t understand the word, you saw the sadness in his eyes, you heard the suffering in his tone, you saw the rage and frustration in his hand. And you heard sarcasm flow from his lips, just as you saw them curb in the most lender of smiles.



It is a true artist’s achievement to spellbind an audience of thousands in a foreign language with just your voice and a piano. Gradually people forgot about their programs and just listened to Dmitri tell us wonderful stories. There was a strong connection there, a dialogue of smiles, eyes and ears, which thankfully survived even the constant interruptions of applause after each song. It became more relaxed and familiar than such evening might be, but I don’t think it lost any of the intensity of the performance.

For more details on the program of the evening please see intermezzo! I felt that I had little to tell about the songs after this, but I decided that it gave me such an unforgettable experience and such pleasure that I had to say thanks once again to Dmitri and Ivari Ilja, who so sensitively and finely accompanied the songs with his piano.

I liked all songs, the sad ones, the melancholic ones, the furious ones and the merry ones, but above all the ironic ones. Watching Dmitri sing Tchaikosvky’s Pimpinella is just pure fun!!!

And he has the most amazing technique and endless breath, guaranteed to make the audience’s jaws drop to the floor where they stayed for pretty much of the evening ;-) My only slight disappointment was not hearing Goethe’s “Gluckliche Fahrt” and “Uber alle Gipfeln ” in original, but Medtner’s music and Dmitri’s singing fully compensated for that.

Dmitri was also dressed for the part, all black silk and flowing lines around his shoulders and arms which made his movements even more gracious.

This was and evening of pure, refined Russian passion to die for!

And for me one of many many more song evening to follow, whatever the language.

Watch out for the repeat later this year at the Barbican and on the 15th on BBC for the broadcast of the evening in Edinburgh.

Here is a small taster of an older version of PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY "In the Midst of the Ball," Op. 38, No. 3

Thanks for the video dokoleg1

For further reviews please see the Scotsman and the Herald