Sturm und Drang
New Yorkers: How about that thunderstorm last night?! My boyfriend and I woke up to these huge claps of that set off car alarms. Long Island City must have been towards the centre, as the lightning was striking in tandem with the thunder, too. Talk about a polyphonic spree… Before veering totally off-topic, I will rein myself in, but I do want to say that the weather was a big reason for our move back to NY from LA. There is nothing like a good East Coast summer thunderstorm (or, thinking ahead, the first good snowstorm). LA’s weather? Earthquakes, Floods/Mudslides, and Fires. It’s like living in Götterdämmerung, except no one there has HEARD of Götterdämmerung. At least during a pretty standard rainstorm, someone in New York is thinking of Rossini’s storm music from Barbiere di Siviglia…
I actually didn’t listen to an opera today, because the next opera (after Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo) is Monteverdi’s L’Arianna (1608). Apart from about 10 minutes of aria (now known as Arianna’s Lament, or “Lasciatemi morire”), it hasn’t survived. Which is a bummer because the next Monteverdi opera comes 32 years later. Mind the gap, as they say on the Tube. So do I count it as an opera, or do I pass it over because it’s not complete?
While debating this, I listened to about 20 versions of Lasciatemi on YouTube, including one by yodeler, source of my pre-teen romanticism, and apparent opster Jewel. Yes, “My-hands-are-small-I-know-Who-will-save-your-soul” Jewel.
Seriously? Seriously.
I listened to a really out-of-sorts version by Corelli, who (in tandem with the rather flushed out orchestra) made it sound more like a long-lost Puccini aria, a winning albeit shortshortshort version by Anne Sofie von Otter (who also yodels–she and Jewel should team up!), and probably the most complete version by Anna Caterina Antonacci (our lady of the hot CD covers). It sounds best in Antonacci’s chocolatey not-quite-soprano, not-quite-mezzo. In fact, her voice is as wily and enigmatic as the piece–packing a punch in the time frame but concealing a greater whole. The brief remains of L’Arianna gave me a tremendous opportunity to compare and contrast a slew of recordings, which in turn shows how malleable a supposedly rigid singing style (that of on-the-cusp Baroque) can be and still be effective to the audience. It also gave me time to reflect on Antonacci, who according to The Times is happy to be out of the reflection pool usually taken up by the Netrebkos and Villazons.
Maybe it’s that we’re both Bolognese, but I really dig her and her ethos as the sort of indie chick in opera. The paring down of the Opera Singer (capital letters), the stripping of diva-dom, may hurt marketers in some ways–a name is a big seller–but in other ways it can be a good card to have–a name is also a pressure to some, a feeling of being outside the cult. Until he started working for the Met, my boyfriend didn’t know who Renee Fleming was (I know, he was lucky). He raised on Glimmerglass Opera, a house that champions young artists and unknowns and consistently churns out stunning productions and stellar casts. Antonacci would have fit right in had she been an Italian/American who grew up in Brooklyn.
Not everyone needs to be a diva or divo, these indie darlings who remain off-radar either by choice or as a side effect of over-saturation may (like so many restaurants in my nabe) look like nothing on the outside but turn you on your ear once you get in. It’s hard for them to become overrated because they’re so under-rated. But for the intellectual opsters, those who go to BAM with a copy of The Economist tucked under their arms or listen to Mendelssohn while hunting down the best pink lady apples at the Greenmarket (think Woody Allen’s characters from the 70s and 80s getting life today, which is also ironically what his next movie is sort of about), this could be just what they’re looking for.
And all that from 10 rather obscure minutes…
Filed under: hot aria, multimedia, opera project, opsters | Leave a Comment
Tags: woody allen, anna netrebko, bologna, barber of seville, brooklyn academy of music, opster, monteverdi, the economist, mendelssohn, thunder, lightning, l'arianna, lasciatemi morire, jewel, anne sofie von otter, corelli, the times, rolando villaon, anna caterina antonacci, gotterdammerung
No Responses Yet to “Sturm und Drang”