Re: Es muss den Gedanken erfassen! xpost
- From: Richergar <richergar@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:55:49 -0700 (PDT)
Well, thanks to you and to our Studer friend. (I believe I did say
some nice things recently about her Daphne, and the truth is I just
never heard her much).
I made one big boo boo, which is that the first encore was Strauss'
Zuiegnung'....but I got the second one right, lol.
As I sat there, Paul, and was kind of trying to come to grips with
what Pape was doing, what had occured to me was Moses und Aaron, which
if, a bit difficult, is a really wonderful attempt as an opera, and I
loved it at the MET for whatever it may be. In any event, the key to
it is really word and idea and how they struggle with each other, and
I remembered some speeches of Moses on this topic in the opera and
came back and looked at the libretto this morning (the old Rosbaud
recording on lp has the most wonderful and erudite notes. In any
event, the words are Moses', and the longer quote, which may be the
harder one, comes from his Act II 'speech" and it's translated in my
libretto as
Inexpressible, many-sided idea.,
Will you let it be so explained?
I can see now that I spelled vieldeutiger incorrectly, but when you
consider my English accuracy rate, I did pretty well, I think <g>
All best
On Apr 26, 11:36 am, Paul <labin...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 26, 9:55 am, "richer...@xxxxxxxxxxx" <richer...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Unaussprechlicher, veildeeutiger Gedanke!
Lasst du Diese Auslegung zu?
Rene Pape's recital last night at Carnegie Hall, with Brian Zeger, was
one of the great musical events of the year for me, and fully
justified coming back early to New York from Los Angeles (although
practically anything would have, come to think about it). I am not
entirely sure that words can do justice to his performances of two
Schubert groups (selections from Schwangengesang and a more varied
selection, including such non-typically bass items as Heidenroslien),
a small Wolf group, and a second half of the program devoted to
Schumann's Dichterliebe. Encores, to put them up from, were the
Schumann Widmung, and, yes, Some Enchanted Evening.
I think that Pape is practically unique at this point among
recitalists in my experience, and that is perhaps, more easily felt
than articulated. Although one could take any number of critical
'stances' to his recital - analyzing the building of the program, the
state of the voice, the technical excellence in creating a sense of
legato, the use of the enunciation of the words as expressive devices,
or many others - what somehow pervaded the evening for me was his deep
and saturated identification with the meaning of the verses, and his
integrity in communicating that 'meaning' to the audience in a way
that is completely 'present', but also without any gimmickery or
attempts to cajole or 'win over' the audience by recourse to
'character', in the sense of 'acting out' the stories. Although
comparisons at this level tend to be invidious, giving one may be
helpful.....Most lieder recitals nowadays try to get the audience
'involved' through the device of having the singer 'experience' the
dilemma of the 'character' of the song, and convey that to the
audience. So, for example, singing "Gretchen am Spinnrade. the singer
'acts out' the drama....each song is made into a drama, and then the
vocal line and the voice are freighted with emotion and 'feeling' as
if each song were a little three minute 'opera'. This doesn't always
have to be tragic emotion, of course - it can be any emotion, given
the text of the song. Even our finest recitalists tend towards this
kind of presentation (and perhaps always have - it was a wonderful
feature of Fi-Di's lieder evenings at Carnegie, as well as Madame
Schwarzkopf's, and Victoria's evenings of song). Even with the so-
called, and self-called, thinking man's singer, Thomas Hampson, the
'ideas' of the music are still often leavened with a a kind of
dramatic emotioniality which carry the thoughts. At worst, with
singers such as Dawn Upshaw or Ian Bostridge, this descends into
bathos and mere sentiment, but still the basic 'approach' of most
lieder singers is within this ambit, or so it seems to me.
Not Mr. Pape. What he seems to identify with is the very idea of the
song - the thought of it, the profound meaning of the text - and he
conveys THAT with an intensity and vividness which are all-
encompassing, completely immediate, and that pull you in (and, I
think, him in) at the highest possible level of shared communication,
and yet without the 'crutch' of creating a 'character' to 'convey' the
'feeling', which does not after all often exist in these songs.
He is NOT impersonal - and he is NOT dry or 'intellectual' - in fact,
quite the opposite. But he doesn't need, to use contemporary parlance,
to create a 'back story' for himself to convey the meaning of text and
the music, and this was probably the first recital I have ever
attended in my life where I worried for the strength of the singer
during the evening....not because I was concerned he couldn't do it,
but because it obvious at every minute took everything from him that
he had in a way I don't think I have ever seen in a lieder evening.
Nothing is held back, and by the same token nothing is dressed up or
wrapped with a bow to make it digestible to the audience.
At moments, he clearly indicates character, don't be misled....he
certainly did so in Ich grolle nichte and in Und wsssten's die Blumen,
but it was not a 'specifc' 'person', but rather the character of the
text. Even in the Rodgers, the expression wasn't demened by sentiment
(how difficult this is to avoid here, when the audience so much wants
it), but neither was he stolid or 'just a voice' - he carried you
along with the place from which the verses come, and this became the
highest art of all.
He is not a 'subtle' interpreter, but a singer at the highest order of
comrehension and communication. This may, in my view, explain him in
opera, where I think he has had some 'hits' and misses' at the
MET.....because, I now suspect, he's not interested in dramatic
'effect', but in getting at what is beneath the surfaces of the words
and conveying them, and in some roles, and some stagings, it may not
compete with our notions of what an operatic character 'does', but
now, frankly, I'd like to go back and listen to all his
characterizations again!
You will ask about the voice and the vocal apparatus, of course. I
think that there are some limitations in the lower range, as everyone
understands, although he manages these and rarely has to work around
them, even if, in some songs, there's an imbalance in tone between the
lower range and the upper range. I don't think this is so unusual -
he's just not a 'black bass', and I suspect that people's expectations
that he 'should' be are because he is such a 'serious' (but not
academic or boring) singer. He may, in fact, ultimately have more of a
Gus Diaz bass-baritone repertoire, although that would be some years
away, I think. Tone quality could be, candidly, a bit burled and rough
at moments - about half-way through the Schumann cycle, I at least
felt that the middle voice was getting very tired and a bit 'loose'
and 'open'...perhaps this was at the very end of his resources given
his MET performances......and for a few moments I worried about where
he could be going. But the upper voice is splendid, and he has the
most subtle and spontaneous-sounding control over various mixed voice
effects, and pianissimi he is able to produce without detaching the
'head' voice from the rest of the registration (something which he
used the Rodgers to display, by the way). I will say that I am not
sure the hall itself, which is a bit more the stuff of legend for
singers than actual acoustics, in my view, totally flatters him with
piano, and early on there was almost a kind of echo when he sang in
the upper register (I was sitting just off center in center
orchestra), as if the ambience couldn't quite handle the brilliance of
the sound in the upper voice with just piano.
Importantly, and consistent with what I've said earlier, he doesn't
'color' the voice for effect....in fact, of the major singers I have
heard, he tends to keep the same vocal coloration per se throughout
the song....no 'underlining' for him. Where the vivacity comes in is
in the extraordinarily deliberate use of legato....he can go from a
very creamy phrase, where it's appropriate, to something which
emphasises more the detachment of each syllable, all within moments,
and all without obvious self consciousness...and in his use of the
German language, which was a sheer joy, and a non-traditional joy, for
this non-German speaking listener to experience.
He is not, I suspect, an entirely easy man, and perhaps will never
have the makings of a media personality as we understand it here. He
may be, indeed, the most delightful of men in company, I have no idea,
but he's very definitely a man with some demons, I think. But without
those demons, you don't get 'art' in performance, but kitsch, and what
Pape has to offer isn't only 'golden age', but, I suspect, rare in the
annals of performing literature in any day.
Beautiful, Richard, but I don't understand the German. Please
translate.
(I think you may have misspelled one word, but I could be wrong)
Paul- Hide quoted text -
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