I'm on the radio today

This morning on CD Review, BBC Radio 3, I'm having a chat with Andrew McGregor about some new recordings of piano concertos, both rare and less rare. We're covering Howard Shelley's set of Beethoven, Stephen Hough's Liszt and Grieg, some concertos by Herold (composer of La fille mal gardee and Zampa) and, um, the Busoni. UK listeners can, if you so choose, tune in via the link here, or catch it later on Listen Again.

Krystian Zimerman talks about sound...

...and about pianos, maturity, Rubinstein, Lutoslawski... This seems to be from Hong Kong radio - not sure precisely when the broadcast was, but it seems to have been uploaded about six months ago.



And here's another treasure I just found: Krystian aged about 25 playing the first movement of Chopin's B flat minor Sonata in a televised concert in Japan, 1982.

Artists Against Racism.EU

Andras Schiff tells me that following my interview with him in the JC about the rising tide of racism in Hungary, he has been on the receiving end of a new slew of virulent anti-Semitic abuse, some of which extends to Holocaust denial.

I'd like to draw your attention to an organisation founded by the conductor Adam Fischer, who has recently resigned from the Hungarian State Opera. Artists Against Racism has an excellent website that, amongst other things, highlights the incidents that somehow do not always make our news pages. It is largely but by no means entirely focused on Hungary. It is described as "a union of artists opposed to racism and intolerance in Europe and the world" and it has come into being not a moment too soon.

Less than two weeks ago the conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi (grandson of the composer Erno Dohnanyi) cancelled some appearances in Hungary in protest at the appointment of a new intendant and artistic director with far-right associations at the New Theatre, Budapest. Read more here. Artists Against Racism has further information on this situation and publishes an open letter to the mayor of Budapest, as well as a link to a petition.

Fischer founded the organisation in April. This is his introductory message:

Dear colleagues, dear friends, 

I would like to welcome you on this website. Together with other Artist colleagues I have written an open letter, published in early January in Brussels, calling for more tolerance in Europe. In this letter we expressed our concern about growing intolerance and increasing racist tendencies in Hungary and in Europe as a whole. I would like all artists who feel the same way to start building a network that helps us to coordinate and stand up together against this growing wave of intolerance. In times of economic crisis, it is easy to direct peoples’ frustration against the more vulnerable in society and to use them as scapegoats. Demagogic politicians, due to opportunist and short-sighted reasons, will often stir up hatred against minorities. I think that artists must use their fame to work against such demagoguery. On this site, I would like to create a forum where we can share our thoughts and ideas. I would ask you, first of all, to simply get in touch, so so that we know how many of us who share these ideals. I look forward to your letters and I wish you all the best.
Adam Fischer

This is not an isolated matter. Hungary is not a small East-European basket case, despite its impenetrable language. It's a major European centre bang on the Danube. And in many fields, in many countries, in many ways, there are signs not only of rising racism but also the repression that usually goes hand-in-glove with it. In the US, National Public Radio has just jettisoned an opera show because its host, Lisa Simeone, took part in the Occupy movement. Nor is she the only one to lose her post because of her personal outlook: more info and some interesting, disturbing questions in The Guardian. 

I am still haunted by Maria at Wexford and its evocation of the brute force to which totalitarian states almost invariably resort sooner or later. How do they take control? Their populations, eyes wide closed, let them. They do not notice what's happening until it's too late.

You will find a permanent link to Artists Against Racism in the JDCMB sidebar section entitled MUSIC INSPIRATIONS.

Wonderful time in wet, wet Wexford

OK, so it rained a lot, but I finally made it to the Wexford Opera Festival. This Irish coastal town, with its soft and subtle colours under low-blowing clouds and sweet-scented, damp air, is famous for much more than its delectable strawberries (but do dip them in chocolate. Oh yes...). It's where such luminaries as Juan Diego Florez, Joseph Calleja and the fast-rising Eglise Gutierrez cut their teeth. I thought it'd be good, having been hearing about it more or less forever. But I didn't realise quite how good until I emerged from Maria by Roman Statkowski [who? ed] shaken to the core by Michael Gieleta's staging - so realistic that I'd sat there reminding myself "it's only an opera, it's only an opera..."

Statkowski, since you ask, was Szymanowski's teacher and his dates are 1859-1925. Maria is a political tale based on an epic poem by Mlynarski from 1825, set in an obscure province of what's now Ukraine in the 17th century. Waclaw, son of the powerful Count Palatine, is in love with Maria, daughter of a mere District Governor - and has run away and married her. Big daddy the despot is furious because his son is the apple of his eye, his sole heir and hope. He appoints his henchmen to bump off Maria so that Waclaw can be unencumbered by a wife from the wrong social class. Despot dispatches army to attack 'thugs' who are 'vandalising' his territories; during the mayhem Maria is abducted and thrown into the river to drown. Waclaw discovers that his father ordered his beloved wife's murder and goes to take revenge - but kills himself instead of his father. There's a grand ball complete with polonaise and mazurka, ravishing love music that seems to have escaped from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5, and folk elements that seem to have escaped from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.2 (though this tune was a Ukrainian folk song long before either composer got hold of it).

Structurally it could be an awkward opera - for instance, the eponymous heroine only stars fully in one scene, plus a brief moment in the next before she is murdered. But Gieleta has updated it to Poland of the early 1980s, to devastating effect. The 'thugs' represent the rise of Solidarnosc: Count Palatine becomes the general in charge of beating them down under martial rule.

I had a long, intense talk with Gieleta, who was a child in Poland at that time and saw it all with his own eyes. Nevertheless, he told me, he was keen to capture not only that specific reality, but the universal relevance of a narrative about totalitarian regimes. He described an incident in which a friend from Venezuela had come up to him with tears in his eyes after seeing the performance and declared that it was about his country.

The staging is violent, at times terrifying in its realism - for instance, the scene in which the women take refuge in the District Governor's yard trying to escape from the threatening troops with riot gear and batons, plus a sleazy priest seeking long-haired candidates to comfort; or the injured, blood-drenched Waclaw stumbling about the container yard, hunting for Maria, unaware that she is dead. The party scene captures the ghastly naffness of communist Poland trying to dress up and party, complete with a few manically grinning folk dancers and a desultory bunny girl emerging from a polar bear suit - Berlusconi bunga-bunga this ain't. Orchestral interludes are illustrated by huge black and white photos under falling snow - queues for food, a bus stuck in a blizzard, the grim shipyards of Gdansk - mirrored by tableaux on stage. Apparently on the first night the Polish Ambassador attended and spotted, in one picture of the demonstrations, an image of his younger self.

Daria Masiero was Maria - not the romantic beauty-queen we might expect, but instead a cuddly, down-to-earth girl in a cardigan, caring towards her father and thrilled when Waclaw gives her the gift of a small teddy bear. As Count Palatine, Krzysztof Szumanski's strong-centred bass-baritone packed a tremendous punch, a big voice with oodles of personality (though he didn't quite have the role's bottom notes); he's an alumnus of the Jette Parker Young Artists programme at Covent Garden and we are likely to hear much more of him. In this trailer for the Deutsche Oper Berlin's Le nozze di Figaro, you can glimpse him as Figaro.

Quite a buzz, though, emanated around Waclaw: the Polish tenor Rafal Bartminski, who portrayed the tale's youthful hero as a peaceable, academic type caught up in forces that do their best to politicise him from either side, somewhat against his inner nature. It's a starry role, romantic and beautiful, and Bartminski carried it off to the manner born. (ENO please note, this would be a terrific role for Toby Spence.)

Listen to Rafal sing Schubert's 'Du bist die Ruhe':



Donizetti's Gianni di Parigi - "Johnny from Paris" - couldn't have been a better antidote: a pure bel canto comedy of dinners. The Dauphin of France arrives at an hotel disguised as a wealthy traveller named Gianni, and bribes the muddled hotelier so that he can take over the whole place although it's been booked out long ago by the Princess of Navarra. He's supposed to marry this princess, but hasn't met her and wants to check her out first, incognito. Unbeknownst to him, though, his dad has told her exactly what's going on, so she turns up fully briefed...and the pair try to outwit each other until they finally admit they're madly in love. Caught in the middle is the hotelier, his daughter, the prince's page boy Oliviero and the princess's snobby, self-important chief steward, who finds himself trapped between his sense of 'honour' and the temptation of a giant vol-au-vent. There are some irresistible arias, foot-tapping ensembles and plenty of those Italian crescendi that remind one of being tailgated more and more closely on the Autostrada.

The production, by Federico Grazzini, was costumed in 1950s style - it seems to be the default setting for Donizetti right now - and my only problem with it was that the chorus consisted of the hotel staff. If they'd had two royal entourages to cater for, they wouldn't have time to stand around singing, drinking and asking the princess for autographs.

More superb singing, though. Zuzana Markova, a Czech coloratura soprano, sang bel canto rings round everyone, saving some her vocal richesse for the glittering final scene; and she bore a rather startling resemblance to the Duchess of Cornwall. Edgardo Rocha, from Uruguy, was a cute, luxury-loving charmer as the Dauphin in disguise, with a high and affectionate tenor that suited the music to a tee. But the one who stole the show, as far as I was concerned, was the trouser-role mezzo of Oliviero the page boy: Lucia Cirillo from Italy, who showed absolute mastery and deep, innate, stylish musicality, as well as offering a lovely sense of fun. Not a huge amount of her to hear on Youtube as yet, but here is a spot of Italian baroque in which she's accompanied by the excellent Fabio Biondi and his orchestra.

Wexford has much more on offer than just the evening operas (and unfortunately I missed the third of those, Ambroise Thomas's La Cour de Celimene - you know what Saint-Saens said about Ambroise Thomas, but I'd still have liked to hear it...). There's an impressive fringe programme of morning lectures, lunchtime recitals and afternoon "shorts". I caught an afternoon performance under the umbrella title of Double Trouble: two one-acters about love, marriage and discord in the suburban states, Menotti's The Telephone (with Laurie Ashworth and Byron Jackson) and Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti starring Toby Girling as Sam and Martha Bredin as Dinah.

Having always heard Trouble in Tahiti described with words like 'flawed', I loved every minute of it: Bernstein's high energy, his focus, his versatility, the way there's no emotion he won't have a go at grabbing in music, the way he can juxtapose irony and pastiche in the close-harmony trios with near desperation over the thin and fragile surface that holds our existence in place... Full marks to the lot of them, including director Michael Shell and music director Adam Burnette.

The Wexford audience? People with a true passion for opera, eager to dress up and hear whatever Wexford deems fit to serve them, in the certainty that it will be good, inspiring, fascinating. Many of those I encountered have been attending annually and faithfully for 15 or 20 years or more. Now I know why.

Jonas Kaufmann, packed in polystyrene

You know how sometimes you receive a big box in the post, and you start to unpack it? You work your way through the tape and the cardboard. Then out fly a thousand little polystyrene piecelets that you'll still be fishing out from under the sofa in three months' time. Underneath that, a polystyrene mould to hold The Thing Itself in place. The Thing Itself is in a bag, so you take it out, then find it's also shrink-wrapped in tough plastic casing that is hard to cut through. Eventually you get it out and it's beautiful ... but there's not much of it, and why, oh why, that quantity of packaging? More Thing, please, and less material for the recycling bin?

Welcome to Jonas Kaufmann at the Royal Festival Hall.

He could scarcely have been on finer form if he'd tried. Having come successfully through surgery in early September for a node in his chest - it turned out, thank heavens, to be benign - the German tenor, man of the operatic moment, sounded fighting fit and ready for anything. In a programme mixing verismo arias familiar and less so, a bloom from Carmen, two Wagner jewels and four generous encores, he grew finer and finer as the evening went on. The concert programme held seven arias - surrounded by the polystyrene piecelets of orchestral bits and pieces that could have been fun had they been well played, properly rehearsed and a tad fewer in number. But that's the principle of such an evening. We want The Thing Itself and we will buy tickets. And if the "product" is 60 per cent packaging, there's nothing we can do about that. If The Thing Itself is worth it, we just accept the nonsense.

This one was indeed worth it.

Kaufmann's rise and rise has been magnificent to witness. It doesn't seem so long since his first CD of Strauss Lieder hit my desk and knocked me off my chair. "Do you know this man?" I asked here on JDCMB. Then we didn't. Now we do, and we're at his feet.

What's the secret of his success? Several points stand out: strange, fabulous, magical.

Strange: at first Kaufmann can sound like a baritone - that covered, whispered, speaking low tone. And then he reaches the high notes and there is nothing he can't do up there. Think: cathedral with fascinating architectural details below and high windows positioned specifically to allow the sun to pour in at the psychological moment.

Fabulous: the control. Take one note, probably on the high side, and sustain it. Start at pppp and increase to ffff gradually, keeping the tone steady and pure throughout. That isn't usually how human breath works. Carmen Flower Song: the precise shadings of timbre as the story is told, the nuances of emotion articulated in each word, but also contained in the sound itself. Fabulous too: the diction, German, Italian, French, and the snapping from one style to the next. Richard Tauber's 'Du bist die Welt fur mich', encore no.2, sung almost like Schubert, with an innigkeit suggestive of layers of meaning beneath the surface. Then, whoosh, we're in Pagliacci for encore no.3, 'Vesti la giubba', and we're listening to someone who really ought to be Italian, the way he twirls and spits the melodrama, those words, that laugh, that unbelievable melody.

Magical: his ability to transform himself into the character he's singing, no matter what's going on around him. Above all, Lohengrin. Kaufmann slid into 'In fernem land' as if there could be no more tender, visionary, perfect creation in the history of humankind. As if he really was destined to find the Holy Grail (pace Monty Python). As if he had just parked his swan outside by the Thames and would be off to resume the Grail Quest as soon as the concert was over. That exceptional tenderness was true, too, of his last encore, Refice's 'Ombra di nube', a sliver of under-known perfection that calmed everyone down (after 'Vesti la giubba' had rawked the auditorium).

He's a real pro, of course, making the very most of the occasion, working the hall, hugging the conductor before pushing him back onto the podium for one more encore. And this was a fabulous evening, one that I think everyone in the packed-to-rafters RFH will remember for years to come.

There's a sour aftertaste nonetheless: must the orchestra and audience be treated like budget airline customers? When corners are cut, people know it. For one thing, I didn't spot any translations anywhere in the house: not in the programme (£6), nor any quickly photocopied sheets of paper. A lot of people wanted them and they weren't there. This audience would also have liked better orchestral playing, which goodness knows the RPO is capable of if it has time to rehearse a programme of this length properly. They had another demanding concert the night before and scant chance to do justice to the music they were bashing through. You have to realise that rehearsing costs money... They did the best they could under the circumstances. It's good that there were a few moments when they sounded inspired: the cellos duetting with Don Jose in the Flower Song, lifted to a new level by the marvel of the voice they were shadowing.

But this audience knew what was going on. This wasn't a typical "light classics"-style date and it attracted a different crowd: an upmarket collection of opera buffs and Kaufmann fanatics, ready to listen to Zandonai and Wagner from the classiest tenor on the planet. The bluff was called: during the standing ovation one solitary but loud boo rang out, to the distress of those around it. A nutter? A jealous unemployed tenor? Or perhaps someone who felt ready to tell the promoter a home truth or two? He was drowned out by the cheering - but was noticed.