Ordinarily, I think I’m a pretty laid-back guy. When I’m not explosively angry, that is. But something happens to me when I write. Give me a word count and a deadline, and I’m like a lackadaisical Seabiscuit until he catches another horse coming up out of the corner of his eye. Word counts are shredded, the fabric of time is tested, and editors despair.
I just submitted 1600 words on Julian Grant’s new harpsichord concerto, “Vaudeville in Teal,” to be given its premiere by Mahan Esfahani and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, March 7 & 8. On the same program with Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella?” You know I’ve got plenty to say.
The article is scheduled to appear in the community newspapers U.S. 1 and Princeton Echo next week. But it might just as easily be taking up all the memory in somebody’s inbox, crippling their account.
princetonsymphony.org
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Arrigo Boito, Giving the Devil His Due
Richard Strauss’ final opera, “Capriccio,” is an extended, if lighthearted debate on the relative merits of words and music. But for Arrigo Boito, the two never really came into conflict.
As one of the great librettists, Boito provided the texts for Verdi’s late masterpieces, “Otello” and “Falstaff.” He also worked up a revision of “Simon Boccanegra” and – under the anagram Tobia Gorrio – provided the libretto for Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda.” That should be enough to guarantee his place in music history, right?
But Boito himself was also a composer of merit, if not a prolific one. Although he destroyed his first opera, “Ero e Leandro,” and his last, “Nerone,” was left incomplete at the time of his death (to be finished by Arturo Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini), he totally nailed it with “Mefistofele.”
There may be those who look down their noses at Boito’s take on Goethe’s “Faust,” yet the work stubbornly clings to the outskirts of the standard repertoire. Audiences love it. For me it is much more entertaining than anything in Verdi (I know, them’s fightin’ words), and I personally find the melodic invention much richer than that in the more popular version by master melodist Charles Gounod.
Sure, as narrative it’s a little clunky – it’s as if Boito presents the story as a series of tableaux that are just kind of stitched together – and the most hair-raising set piece, the prologue in Heaven, comes right at the beginning. How could it not be all downhill from there? But the composer has the good sense to bring it all back at the end.
What the opera really demands is a strong personality at its core, someone who, through his magnetic stage presence and sheer force of will, can tow the circus parade of wonders, wagon after wagon, before our astonished eyes and ears.
Feodor Chaliapin, by all accounts, was just such a force. He gained wide notoriety in the title role, for his earthy interpretation and his insistence on playing it half-naked.
In the recent past, Samuel Ramey owned the piece. He too preferred to show a fair amount of skin (though less than Chaliapin) – but really, couldn’t that be said for just about any of Ramey’s roles?
Here’s the stunning – and cheeky – Robert Carson production first presented by San Francisco Opera in 1989, which I belatedly caught up with in New York, unfortunately after Ramey retired. The first 26 minutes will knock your socks off.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSSbn9y-js0
Chaliapin in 1927
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVfjMHOeOVA
Happy birthday, Arrigo Boito (1842-1918). Whether in words or in music, you gave the devil his due! -
The Essence of Handel with Opera Essentia
On George Frideric Handel’s birthday, check out these H. Paul Moon films documenting four of the composer’s operas tailored for outdoor performance in New York community gardens by Opera Essentia. The company’s artistic director, countertenor Jeffrey Mandelbaum, manages to get each of them down to about an hour. The operas are rarely-heard. The abridgments are tasteful. The productions are no-budget, bare-bones, and beautiful. I posted about “The Queen’s Heart,” the distillation of “Radamisto,” early in January. Hear all four here:
https://zenviolence.com/handel
Happy birthday, Handel! -
Adieu to John Bertalot
It’s tough for me to keep up with everything sometimes, especially on a weekend when I want to promote my shows and I’ve got to be in New York for the day. So it’s only now that I’m getting around to posting about English organist and choir director John Bertalot, for 15 years director of music at Princeton’s Trinity Episcopal Church. Bertalot, who died on Saturday, founded the Princeton Singers in 1983.
Across the pond, he was organist and director of music at St Matthew’s Church, Northampton (1958-1964) and Blackburn Cathedral (1964-1982). He wrote several books on choral directing and singing.
In 1998, Bertalot was succeeded as director of the Princeton Singers by composer-conductor Steven Sametz. Under Sametz, the group, a professional chamber choir based at Trinity Church, also served as resident ensemble for the Lehigh University Summer Choral Composers Forum. The organization folded in August, after 41 years, due to “ongoing financial challenges… significantly intensified by the pandemic.”
At the time of his death, Bertalot, who was born in Maidstone, Kent, in 1931, was 94 years-old. It was difficult for me to find a good or interesting photo (beyond those that have already been shared by others), as sadly, it appears his website has expired. Here’s something of an informal one, with Bartelot in neither gown nor tie. Thankfully, there are still some decent videos posted on YouTube.
R.I.P.
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Bertalot at Blackburn (complete program in the description)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiSEicR9lt0&t
Bertalot at Trinity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22FS_48V6fE
With the Princeton Singers, Herbert Howells’ “Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing,” to the memory of JFK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3tXoLC2Fqg -
Irving Berlin and Fred Astaire Contort on Washington’s Birthday
February 22. Washington’s birthday. Not the contemporary holiday (a.k.a. Presidents Day), mind you, but the actual anniversary of his birth.
Anybody else a fan of “Holiday Inn” (1942), with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire? Irving Berlin astounds with a dozen songs constructed on holidays from the American calendar. Some have earned their immortality (“White Christmas” and “Easter Parade”). Others are completely forgettable. The song celebrating Washington’s Birthday falls soundly into the latter category – which, I argue, only makes it all the more enjoyable.
I find “Holiday Inn” vastly superior to its remake-of-sorts, “White Christmas” (1954), which pairs Crosby with Danny Kaye. Unfortunately Berlin’s celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday as a jaw-dropping black face number hasn’t aged particularly well. (At one point, Bing actually interjects, “Who dat?”) This number, more than anything, is probably what damns “Holiday Inn” to comparative obscurity – except for “White Christmas,” anyway – which is a shame, because the movie is very entertaining. These days, the segment is edited out of most television airings of the film, with the exception of those broadcast on TCM, which doesn’t attempt to whitewash history.
Washington’s Birthday is represented by “I Can’t Tell a Lie.” The number features Bing in a disheveled powdered wig, attempting to undermine Astaire, his rival in love, with a schizophrenic musical accompaniment that ping-pongs wildly (in the film) between 18th century minuet and 1940s big band.
Get a load of Berlin’s excruciatingly contrived lyrics. They can’t all be “White Christmas,” you know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxh52CY7EsU
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