From Mozart to Massenet

...On Music FROM MOZART TO MASSENET BY M ANATOLE GUREWITSCH The appearance of a new recording of the young Mozart's captivating Idotneneo, re di Creta (Deutsche Grammophon 2740 195) has given interest to a summer otherwise largely dominated by the crop of recent albums bearing witness to the current voguishness of 19th-century French opera Although rarely mounted, Idomeneo inspires fierce loyalties in the hearts of true Mozartians and deserves, indeed, to be recognized as a major classic Commissioned for the 1791 Munich carnival festivities, the impassioned score displays the composer's operatic genius at full strength for [he first time Since technically the music is a late blossom of the antiquated form of the opera seria, it in no way "foreshadows" the five masterpieces of his maturity and has not suttered invidious comparison with them, dramatic problems account for its neglect Yet in the variety and force of its vocal statements, the brilliance of its orchestral willing, and the overall boldness for its design, Idomeneo easily descives a place alongside Die Entinfulrung aus dem Serail, le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflote The action unfolds in the aftermath of the Trojan War, but it should be cautioned that for those to whom the period brings to mind the Oresteia or the Odyssey, the opera's mythology will appear marginal, unfamiliar and highly revisionist The titular hero, King Idomeneus, who has fought with his army on the side of the Greeks, is sailing home to the isle of Crete There his son Idamantes, now grown to valiant manhood, awaits him in the company of two princesses Ilia, a captive Trojan and daughter of Priam, whom he has rescued from shipwreck, and Electra, the haughty exiled daughter of Agamemnon Both ladies love the Prince, he loves only Ilia, who in memory of her father's fallen city rejects his declarations In view of the island, Idomeneus' ship splits Tossed in the waves, he promises Neptune the first living soul he meets on land in exchange tor his own safety That turns out to be none other than his own son, and he cannot cam out his murderous obligation The angry sea god unleashes a dragon to punish the pionuse-breaker, but Ida-mantes vanquishes the mousici and is laiscd with Ilia, by divine hat, to his father's throne The thwarted Electra goes mad The story places many strains on credibility Ilia's initial misinformation about the bent of Idamantes' affections, for example, is on reflection hard to comprehend, and the clever scheme to put the unsuspecting prince out of Neptune's reach by having him escort Electra back to Argos is entirely unfathomable, for the only route to his destination is by sea Nevertheless, in a performance that rises to the pitch of the score, the opera is singularly convincing The incendiary power of the music sets a world ablaze before us from which the driving emotions of the opera's characters emerge as patently true Mozart achieves this urgency partly by composing across what in the traditional opera seria idiom (including his own much earlier Mitridate and much later Clemenza di Tito) would have been major breaks in the musical continuity Thus the opening recitative proceeds without interruption from the hardly noticeable close of the overture, Ilia's ensuing ana hurtles forward into dramatic recitative without a fully articulated ending or any bid for applause, and the orchestral turbulence accompanying Electra's ana at the end of the first scene leads directly into the hair-raising chorus that commences the second scene Such unorthodox management of transition gives Idomeneo a kind of sweep we anachronistically experience as spectacularly cinematic," but the work's magnificence does not rest on this technicality alone For its Munich premiere, Mozart had at his disposal one of the preeminent orchestras ol Europe and he took full advantage ot the happy circumstance Despite the many splendors of his later music dramas, none has an instrumental score ot comparable richness In the set pieces, the band's eloquence spreads the characters' innermost beings panoramically before us And the explosive recitatives, punctuated with singing passion and shot through with exalted melody, are in a way still mote astonishing Nowhere in llicopeia though does the orchestral profusion interfere with the vocal line Regrettably, the new disc does not really do justice to Idomeneo, or equal previous recordings of it In the 1957 Glyndebourne production under John Pntchard, available on Seraphim, Sena Juimac's sublime Ilia stands out m a company of excellent Mozartians like Richard Lewis, who plays the King, and Leopold Simoneau, a civilized and sweet-voiced Idamantes Many years ago, Philips released a Colin Davis reading of the work that catches the full fire of Mozart's invention and boasts strong individual performances by Marghenta Rinaldi (Ilia), Pauline Trisley (Electra), George Shirley (Idomeneus), and Robert Tear (Idamantes) The present album is under the musical direction of Karl Bohm, whose communion with the spirit of the opera is depressingly intermittent In fact, the Staatskapelle Dresden is to be commended for the clarity of the instrumental execution, but too often the bright, alert playing lacks the sympathetic insight that carries a listener beyond the notes themselves to the musical and dramatic thought While the damage Bohm inflicts is by no means flagrant, his prosaism again and again blanches the colors of the score Not even the remarkable solos, with which Mozart paid tribute to his esteemed virtuosos, retain their bloom Only the violin obbligato to the slow section of Idamantes' "Non temer, amato bene" ("Fear not, my beloved") achieves genuine radiance The ana, incidentally, belongs to a late revision of the score when the role of the Prince, originally assigned to a male soprano, was rewritten for a tenor, it was subsequently rearranged as a concert piece for the soprano Nancy Storace with orchestra and piano obbligato, and in this form is quite familiar Nonetheless, within the opera it is dramatically disruptive and logical The British critic William Mann, in his searching and meticulous book, 77ie Operas of Mozart, declares that "the ana is elegant and beautiful but not to be considered as part of the opera " Fortunately, Bohm's decision to include the piece is musically justified by the limpid, serene playing of the Staatskapelle's unnamed concert master, who spins out its long line in a seamless, unending breath of immaculate phrasing Peter Schreier's account of the melody first stated by the violin cannot match its control and finesse, at best, his stylish sensitivity carries him respectably through music he has neither the beauty of tone nor the refinement of technique to display in full glory Edith Mathis moves comfortably from Ilia's mettlesome temper to her more lyric moods, but she does not produce an even stream of sound and aspirates heavily in melismas Like Schreier's, her Italian is mid-European—diligently studied, yet hazy on the distinctions between open and closed vowels The two other principals are better As the fiery Electra, Julia Varady negotiates her daunting coloratura with profound musical intelligence and flashing dramatic presence In the title role, Wieslaw Ochman delivers his recitatives with authority and addresses his anas with a flexible, beautifully cultivated "dark" tenor The Leipzig Radio Chorus makes a strong contribution, too, especially in the antiphonal composition where the people of Crete stand by helpless and appalled as the King's sailors cry out from the deadly, churning sea Bohn's hand is strong in the storm music, and it is here that the recording gives the fullest sense of the overwhelming scope of this operatic masterpiece Now let us turn briefly to the fashion of the moment, where we find Jules Massenet's Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame (Angel SBLX-3877) and Cendnllon (Columbia M3 35194), and Ambroise Thomas's Mignon (Columbia M4 34590) As the new recordings amply document, all three are put together with workmanlike skill and a knowing sense of what will be successful in the theater Within a strictly conventional range, they touch fairly deep emotions, and present agreeable tunes...

...But if these works are charming, they are at the same time shallow It is a dull ear that cannot take in their full musico-dramatic content at first hearing Although Thomas and Massenet were able scene-painters, for many sophisticated tastes their palettes were overly spangled and gaudy The harps, drums and trumpets throughout Cendnllon quickly exhaust their own magic, as does the disembodied twittering of the Good Fairy—a large, exceptionally ungrateful role pallidly played by Ruth Welting Fredenca von Stade, the Cinderella, manages some poignant moments, her problem is that the sentiments the composer gives her to express are too repetitious to sustain our interest Le Jongleur makes its points more swiftly It tells of the miracle of a poor juggler (also in the Biblical sense "poor in spirit") whose childlike performance before the altar to entertain the Madonna outrages the holy brotherhood but finds favor in her eyes The tone is pseudomedieval, and the band includes the plangent strain of the viola d'amore Alam Vanzo's expertly gauged performance—particularly his "naive" spontaneity—makes the album well worth hearing, and many lively songs offer a further inducement Vanzo appears to less advantage as Wilhelm Meister in Mignon, despite firm singing, because the role requires embellishments he cannot easily toss off Happily, the recording centers on Marilyn Home's arresting portrait of the title figure, a half-crazed child of noble family brought up by gypsies Her command of the girl's madly shifting moods is absolute, and the impenshable "Connaistu le pays" ("Knowst thou the land") issues from her lips as if for the first time Welting is on hand to warble as the flighty actress Philine, and von Stade steps winningly into the trousers part of the lovesick student Frederick The well-made score, with its recurring themes and carefully judged contrasts, seems due for a theatrical revival, for certainly it deserves the status and currency of a minor classic...