HANDEL
Il Pastor Fido
La Nuova Musica
Harmonia Mundi HMU907585/6 (CD)
VERDI
Falstaff
Conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Sony/CBS Masterworks 42535 (CD)
STRAUSS
Rosenkavalier
Munchner Philharminiker
Decca 0743340
STRAUSS
Rosenkavalier
Conducted by Carlos Kleiber
DG 0734072
There’s been considerable excitement among fans of early music over the appearance on CD of a recording of an early Handel work, the first version of his opera Il Pastor Fido (The Faithful Shepherd). It dates from 1712, but this is its first ever recording. The artists responsible are the UK’s La Nuova Musica, an ensemble created by the counter-tenor David Bates. The freshness of their version of this nearly forgotten work is certainly impressive.
Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido was one of the most famous books of late 16th-century/early 17th-century Italy. It tells the story of a woman in love with one man but under pressure to marry another (thus prefiguring many later operas from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor to Bellini’s I Puritani). The soloists and instrumentalists on this new CD appear to be all in their 20s, and this of course fits well with a tale of young love. Handel, too, was only 27 when he wrote it. It was a relative failure and he redrafted it 22 years later to better suit London tastes. But this recording of the original version obviously says a lot about his earlier stylistic ambitions.
The greatest operas, by contrast, keep being re-filmed and rerecorded so that eventually you’re almost spoilt for choice. Strauss’ Rosenkavalier is a case in point. A recent version on DVD with Renee Fleming, Sophie Koch and Diana Damrau, with Christian Thielmann conducting the Munchner Philharmoniker, certainly has its enthusiasts. Jonas Kaufmann, flavor of the month as far as tenors go, makes a cameo appearance as the Italian singer in Act One, though having him dig into a plate of spaghetti seems less than a good idea. Much use is made of mirrors, and on a bonus track all the principals praise Strauss’ and librettist Hofmannsthall’s achievement without ever managing to say anything new about it.
Fleming is the star attraction, though she manages to look if anything too young for a role in which consciousness of aging plays such a crucial part. In the final analysis, though, this pair of DVDs can’t begin to compare with Carlos Kleiber’s classic 1979 rendering, which appeared on DVD in 2005. Kleiber conducted two versions, the other one in 2004 (reviewed in Taipei Times on March 17, 2005), but the earlier one is in almost every way superior.
It has Gwyneth Jones as the Marshallin, Brigitte Fassbaender as Octavian (the most successfully manly-looking Octavian I’ve seen) and Lucia Popp as Sophie. Manfred Jungwirth is Baron Ochs. It seems impossible to better, having all the romantic and comic dimensions in perfect balance. It remains one of the great opera DVDs, and can be recommended unreservedly. It’s also included in Deutsche Grammophon’s 111 boxed set of some of their most famous DVDs (some of the contents of which were reviewed in Taipei Times on June 6, 2010).
But then, out of the blue, comes a new product on BluRay, released in October by Park Circus. It’s of an even older production, dating from 1962, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as the Marshallin, and conducted by Karajan at the Salzburg Festival. Critics have been ecstatic about it, but I’ve yet to see it. Certainly the Karajan/Schwarzkopf combination in this opera on CD has long been a celebrated item, and is often cited as one of the finest classical recordings of all time.
But the point is that the greatest masterpieces can never be finally and forever pinned down and given an absolutely definitive performance. Either there lurks somewhere in the past a rendition that will put all the others in the shade, or there’s a new one being prepared even now that will do the same.
A comparable situation exists with regard to CD recordings of Verdi’s Falstaff. The catalog teems with competing versions of Falstaff, with celebrated renditions by Toscanini, Solti (twice), Giulini, Karajan and others. Back in the 1990s I followed a production from its beginnings to its final performances, and made a book out of the experience. At that time I listened to at least five complete recordings, but this month I’ve come across one that I somehow managed to miss back then. And it may well be the finest of them all.
It’s the version by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role and Rolando Panerai as Ford. My ears could hardly believe the brilliance of the sound coaxed out of the Viennese by Bernstein, nor the ravishing combination of instrumental incisiveness and vocal joie de vivre. I can’t flaw this performance on any points. Indeed, it has the power to lift me out of depression, and that’s saying a lot.
Finding it may pose something of a problem. It’s been through several incarnations, appearing on labels from Amadeus Lirica to Sony. The secret is this — that it’s been reissued by Archiv Music, and if you go to their Web site you can order it there. I find it difficult to believe that money could possibly be better spent.
Last week, Viola Zhou published a marvelous deep dive into the culture clash between Taiwanese boss mentality and American labor practices at the Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) plant in Arizona in Rest of World. “The American engineers complained of rigid, counterproductive hierarchies at the company,” while the Taiwanese said American workers aren’t dedicated. The article is a delight, but what it is depicting is the clash between a work culture that offers employee autonomy and at least nods at work-life balance, and one that runs on hierarchical discipline enforced by chickenshit. And it runs on chickenshit because chickenshit is a cultural
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
When picturing Tainan, what typically comes to mind is charming alleyways, Japanese architecture and world-class cuisine. But look beyond the fray, through stained glass windows and sliding bookcases, and there exists a thriving speakeasy subculture, where innovative mixologists ply their trade, serving exquisite concoctions and unique flavor profiles to rival any city in Taiwan. Speakeasies hail from the prohibition era of 1920s America. When alcohol was outlawed, people took their business to hidden establishments; requiring patrons to use hushed tones — speak easy — to conceal their illegal activities. Nowadays legal, speakeasy bars are simply hidden bars, often found behind bookcases