Un-HIP

The August Opera News is devoted to Baroque Opera, something unthinkable even 20 years ago. A number of people in the industry are asked to name their top five vocal baroque recordings. Artists Manager Ken Benson dares to include as his five, recordings that are decidedly not part of the historically-informed mainstream. His favorite Giulio Cesare recording is a German performance from 1964 with (heavens forefend) a bass Caesar.

Despite my generally reactionary tastes in performance of 19th century opera, my preferences for baroque opera lean towards the period-instrument variety. Despite this bias, I opted to put on the recording that he prefers and I have to say that although it is a bit heavy handed, I was swept up by it. Now of course having singers the quality of Walter Berry (who handles Caesar quite nicely, thank you), his ex Christa Ludwig, Lucia Popp, and (oh yes) Fritz Wunderlich doesn't hurt a bit. As a result my ear can adjust to the foreign sound of the recording (and not just the use of the German language) and I can accept this as perfectly valid and emotionally appropriate. Now, I won't go so far as wanting to hear Corelli as Sesto, as Benson suggests (I can barely take him as Werther), but this is certainly an approach I won't dismiss quickly.

Who cares how old he is?

The fact that Alan Gilbert, who was just appointed the new music director of the NY Philharmonic, will be 42 when he takes the post, is frankly immaterial. Alex Ross shows us that this is certainly not unique in the annals of the NY Phil.

I don't honestly think that his relative youth will be of much use in attracting younger audiences. I'm not really sure why anyone would think that. Living in the community that I do, I've seen plenty of seventy year-olds whose energy puts mine to shame and the "vitality" that he would bring to his job, has little to do with his age.

The things that matter are the quality and innovation of his programming and above all the level of his music making and that which he draws from the orchestra. The one thing that I think differentiates him from his immediate predecessors is that he will have something to prove and won't have any opportunity to settle for complacency. I think it will also help that Muti will spend more time with the orchestra, providing a bit of a bar by which to measure Gilbert (I disagree vehemently with some of Muti's thoughts on 19th century operatic performance practice, but the NY Philharmonic performances I've heard under him were mostly revelatory).

The reviews that I've read have been almost uniformly positive, but I suspect it will take a few years to get the measure of the man and his talent. I can only wish him and the orchestra luck.

So that's how it works

A few weeks ago a colleague and I gave a talk about the working of the singing voice for a diverse group of people, many of whom didn't know anything about opera or singing. In preparation (although I wasn't going to go into such detail) I spent some time with some of books on the working of the human voice and vocal function.

I was surprised at how much I had forgotten or perhaps had never known. I can't recall learning which muscles worked to tighten the vocal folds etc. I wonder how many singers actually know such details and whether that knowledge actually helps.

Maybe its just a coincidence, but I'm singing better the past few weeks than I have in a long time.