KIRI TE KANAWA SINGS MOZART

Transcription

1 Eloq uence KIRI TE KANAWA SINGS MOZART Le nozze di Figaro Mitridate Così fan tutte Don Giovanni Die Zauberflöte Lucio Silla Die Entführung aus dem Serail Idomeneo Il re pastore Zaide Exsultate, jubilate Concert Arias Kiri Te Kanawa Tate Davis Fischer Solti Pritchard Marriner Levine

2 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART ( ) CD Zaide, KV Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben 6 37 La finta giardiniera, KV Crudeli fermate... Ah dal pianto 5 55 La clemenza di Tito, KV S altro che lagrime 2 11 Così fan tutte, KV Ei parte... Senti... Per pietà, ben mio, perdonna 9 48 Il re pastore, KV L amerò, sarò costante 7 27 Lucio Silla, KV Pupille amate 4 02 Idomeneo, KV Se il padre perdei 6 34 Die Zauberflöte, KV Ach, ich fühl s 4 26 London Symphony Orchestra Sir Colin Davis Mass in C minor, KV 427 Great 9 Et incarnatus est 8 51 Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Sir Neville Marriner Vesperae solennes de confessore, KV Laudate Dominum 5 11 London Symphony Chorus & Orchestra Sir Colin Davis John Constable, organ

3 ! Exsultate, jubilate, KV London Symphony Orchestra Sir Colin Davis John Constable, organ CD Le Nozze di Figaro, KV Porgi amor E Susanna non vien... Dove sono 7 05 London Philharmonic Orchestra Sir Georg Solti Der Schauspieldirektor, KV Bester Jüngling 3 13 Wiener Philharmoniker Sir John Pritchard Così fan tutte, KV Come scoglio 4 15 Wiener Philharmoniker James Levine Die Entführung aus dem Serail, KV Welcher Wechsel herrscht in meiner Seele Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose 7 47 Mitridate, re di Ponto, KV 87 6 Lungi da te, mio bene 8 16 Frank Lloyd, horn Don Giovanni, KV Don Ottavio, son morta Or sai chi l onore 6 33 Peter Bronder, tenor 8 Calmatevi, idol mio Non mi dir 7 20 Die Entführung aus dem Serail, KV Martern aller Arten 8 44 English Chamber Orchestra Jeffrey Tate CD Misera! dove son Ah! non son io che parlo, KV Ch io mi scordi di te... Non temer, amato bene, KV Mitsuko Uchida, piano English Chamber Orchestra Jeffrey Tate 3 Ah, lo previdi Ah, t invola agl occhi miei, KV Vado, ma dove? Oh Dei!, KV Oh, temerario Arbace!... Per quel paterno amplesso, KV 79 (KV 73d) Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia, KV Non più. Tutto ascoltai Non temer, amato bene, KV Rainer Küchl, violin 8 Bella mia fiamma, addio!... Resta, oh cara, KV Nehmt meinen Dank, ihr holden Gönner!, KV Wiener Kammerorchester György Fischer Kiri Te Kanawa, soprano Total timing:

4 Kiri Te Kanawa PHOTO: DECCA / JULIAN EASTEN Mozart put his unmistakable personal stamp on a whole range of musical timbres from the serene, singing violin sound of the concertos he wrote in Salzburg at the end of his teenage years, to the warm sonorities of the later music for clarinet but the soprano voice is a sound that he explored in all its potential all through his short life, creating for it a vast and unrivalled array of music. His singers were all known to him, whether stars of the Italian opera in Milan or Vienna, personal friends or even members of his wider family, and his close relationship with the individual performers had an often decisive influence on the music he produced. It was Mozart that made Kiri Te Kanawa a star, when she sang the Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden in December 1971, with Colin Davis on the podium. A natural affinity with the composer s music led to her concentrating on a small number of key Mozart soprano roles over the years that followed, both on stage and in the studio, but the recordings collected here, made predominantly in the 1970s and 80s not only showcase her full Mozartian range, but capture her voice in its prime. In January 1770, a few days short of his fourteenth birthday, Mozart arrived in Milan for the first time, at the start of a year that would see him travel the length and breadth of Italy, receive an honour from the Pope, be admitted into Bologna s prestigious Accademia Filarmonica, and finally return to the city to write his first Italian serious opera. This was Mitridate, re di Ponto, an Italian version of a tragedy by Racine, given at the Teatro Regio Ducal on 26 December to enormous acclaim, with repeated enthusiastic calls for the maestrino. The hero of this elevated drama was played by the male soprano Pietro Benedetti, and it was for him that Mozart composed the beautiful aria Lungi da te, mio bene, in which the character, the prince Sifare, bids farewell to the woman both he and his father love. With its elaborate writing for solo horn, the aria demonstrates a characteristic Mozartian vocal manner already formed: that poised, elegant note of contained intensity, together with those remarkable wide leaps that mark often his music for noble figures in adversity, down to the conscience-stricken Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. Two years later, Mozart was back in Milan for a second serious opera, Lucio Silla. Again the hero was sung by a male soprano, Venanzio Rauzzini, a composer himself and later singing-teacher, for whom Mozart immediately went on to write the brilliant

5 Kiri Te Kanawa PHOTO: DECCA / JEAN-PIERRE MASCLET motet Exsultate, jubilate, with its dazzling final Alleluia, performed in a city church in January Mozart revealed a new maturity and expansion of his expressive range in the comic opera La finta giardiniera that he wrote for performance in Munich in January His developing sympathy for his female characters is evident when the story takes an unexpected serious turn, and the heroine, the pretend gardener of the title, is waylaid by her rival in love and abandoned at nightfall in the woods. The restless, jabbing orchestral accompaniment to the soprano s opening words, Crudeli, fermate, her urgent calls for help, and her breathless anguish in the little panting figures in the main aria, Ah, dal pianto together create a vivid musical picture of distress. In Il re pastore from later the same year, composed to entertain the Archduke Maximilian Franz on a visit to the Mozarts employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg, the young composer returned to a consciously loftier tradition, and for the soprano hero, the shepherd Aminta, wrote one of his most beautiful, poised melodies of all, L amerò, sarò costante. The mood of classical restraint is captured in the particular texture Mozart creates to support the soprano voice flutes, cor anglais and horns, and a solo violin whereas there is something less formal and more direct about the sound of the equally beautiful aria of four years later, Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben, with its prominent solo oboe and bassoon and plucked inner string parts. Mozart may have started work on the piece to which this aria belongs with the new Imperial project of opera in German in mind, but it remained unfinished and the surviving music was sold by Mozart s widow Constanze to a publisher who gave the work the title Zaide. Ten years on from that first Milanese success, Mozart produced a further Italian serious opera, the searching and infinitely more complex Idomeneo, performed in Munich in January His soprano heroine, Ilia, is a Trojan princess held prisoner on Crete in the aftermath of the Trojan War, and in her second-act aria, Se il padre perdei, she confesses to the Cretan king her love for his son. This was presumably the scene that Mozart reported to his father, the original singer, Dorothea Wendling, was hugely satisfied with. But it was Singspiel, German opera with spoken dialogue, not Italian opera with recitative, that gave Mozart his first, and greatest Viennese operatic success when he made his definitive move to the capital, with the fashionably Turkish-set Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The upstanding heroine, significantly

6 Kiri Te Kanawa PHOTO: DECCA / CHRISTIAN STEINER named Konstanze, is given two arias: one expression of loss and sorrow, the minor-key Traurigkeit, and one of determination and resistance, the virtuoso Martern aller Arten. One further Singspiel, the one-act Der Schauspieldirektor, followed in February 1786; a satire on backstage bad behaviour, it features two rival prima donnas, one of whom, Mademoiselle Silberklang, introduces herself to the impresario of the title with the aria Bester Jüngling, featuring Mozart s beloved clarinets in the orchestral accompaniment. Mozart was at this time already at work on the piece that marked his operatic coming of age when first performed at the court theatre in Vienna in May of the same year: the first of his three collaborations with Venetian poet and adventurer Lorenzo Da Ponte, Le nozze di Figaro. The two arias for the Countess, sublime expressions of a married woman s sorrow at her husband s roving eye, show Mozart building on all his operatic experience to create a character which belongs to the familiar operatic tradition but has acquired a new vivid, musical life. Donna Anna, the heroine of the next Da Ponte opera, Don Giovanni, is a more conflicted character: a double victim of Don Giovanni, who has attempted to rape her, and murdered her father, she first relates the tale of her traumatic experience in her recitative, Don Ottavio, son morta! before spurring her punctilious fiancé to avenge her in the aria Or sai chi l onore. As the net is closing in on the unrepentant Giovanni, she maintains her spirit of stern self-denial in her second, two-part aria Non mi dir, refusing to rush into marriage while still grieving. Mozart unerringly homes in on the ambivalent character of Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, picking up on the contradictions Da Ponte wrote into the part: determined to stand firm as a rock when the chance to have some fun arises while her fiancé is away in Come scoglio, she has recognised her weaknesses and is struggling to conquer them in the later Per pietà. Mozart s last two operas were premiered only weeks apart, in September 1791: one was that mixture of comedy, fantasy and Masonic seriousness, Die Zauberflöte, the other a traditional Italian serious opera honouring regal virtues, La clemenza di Tito, chosen to celebrate the coronation of the Habsburg Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia in Prague. The classical clarity of Servilia s S altro che lagrime in the Italian piece contrasts with the almost Romantic complexity of Pamina s aching Ach, ich fühl s in the German one.

7 PHOTO: DECCA / NANCY LE VINE When he was not busy writing his own operas, Mozart was happy to provide one-off arias for particular singers. These could be either stand-alone works on existing texts, such as those by the acknowledged master of operatic writing, the Viennese court poet Pietro Metastasio, arias to insert into operas by other composers, or new arias for a revival of one of his own pieces, such as Non più. Tutto ascoltai... Non temer composed for a concert performance of Idomeneo in Vienna. The works of Metastasio provided Mozart with the texts of his very earliest efforts he wrote the operatic scena on the poet s Oh temerario Arbace, around the age of ten and were still a source in 1781, when he set Misera! dove son, from Metastasio s Ezio. Da Ponte, on the other hand, is presumed to have been the author of the two arias Chi sa qual sia and Vado, ma dove? that Mozart composed in Vienna eight years later for the soprano Louise Villeneuve, the first Dorabella in Così, to insert into Martín y Soler s Il burbero di buon cuore. Prague in 1787 when in the city for the premiere of Don Giovanni, and the aria Bella mia fiamma, addio!... Resta, o cara, with its possible private joke of the challenging chromatic sequence on the words this is dreadful for me (questo passo è terribile per me) was written for her at this time. Another singer with whom Mozart had a personal connection was Aloisia Lange, whom he had at first pursued, unsuccessfully, before turning his attention to her sister Constanze. He wrote the aria Nehmt meinen Dank for a concert given by Aloisia in Vienna in 1782, and in all likelihood composed the aria Et incarnatus est in his unfinished C minor Mass for Constanze to sing when it was performed in Salzburg in October 1783, presumably with earlier music filling in the unwritten movements. Another soprano favourite was Nancy Storace, who created the role of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and for whom Mozart wrote the concert aria Ch io mi scordi di te, with an elaborate piano part for himself to play at her farewell concert in Vienna. Kiri Te Kanawa The soprano Josepha Duschek, for whom he composed the aria Ah, lo previdi... Ah, t invola agli occhi miei in 1777, became, with her husband, a close colleague and friend: Mozart stayed at the couple s home near While Kiri Te Kanawa was still preparing for that career-defining debut as the Countess, she made a first Mozart disc under Colin Davis: a collection of sacred music, including the Solemn Vespers, KV 339, with its serene

8 setting of Laudate Dominum, and Exsultate, jubilate. The Countess became the singer s calling-card, and she repeated the role immediately in San Francisco and at Glyndebourne. The thwarted Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni followed, again under Davis at Covent Garden, before Kiri took her Countess to the Met in New York in February 1976, and sang her first Fiordiligi in Paris, in a production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. The Paris Opera was also the location of Kiri s debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in While her first forays into Strauss were beginning, with Arabella and the Marschallin, the Mozart roles remained central to Kiri s repertoire not least her Elvira, preserved in Joseph Losey s breakthrough film of Don Giovanni and this was the music she was performing at Covent Garden at the time of her leap into superstardom, when she sang at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana in July The previous month she had committed her Countess to disc in a classic recording for Decca under Georg Solti. A much-praised first Fiordiligi in a new production at the Met followed at the beginning of the next year, and so when the album of Mozart arias with Davis was made in London in October 1982, it caught the singer not only at the height of her vocal powers, but displaying a wealth of Mozartian stage experience. If it is the beauty of the singer s tone that immediately strikes the ear in all these recordings, from the first notes of Porgi, amor, or Ruhe sanft, for instance, with its soaring leap on the word Leben, it is the evenness of the voice throughout the entire range that emerges from the unfolding melodies of Non più di lagrime, or L amerò, sarò costante, and its ease and security in the high-lying anguished opening phrases of Crudeli, fermate. As well as a later recording of operatic and other arias made with Jeffrey Tate, Kiri contributed to the late Christopher Raeburn s project to record all Mozart s concert arias for Decca, and when the selection was later released as a separate album, Stanley Sadie wrote in his review in Gramophone, this would be hard to challenge for sheer beauty and richness of tone. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa s voice is well deployed in the rondo written for the Idomeneo revival and in the noble, fiery music of Ah, lo previdi : a fitting tribute to a much-loved soprano in music to which she was perfectly suited. Kenneth Chalmers Recording producers: Michael Bremner (CD1: 1 8); Erik Smith (CD1: 9); Vittorio Negri (CD1: 10, 11); Michael Haas, Christopher Raeburn (CD2: 1 2); Christopher Raeburn (CD2: 3, CD3: 3 9); Cord Garben, Claudia Hamann, Werner Mayer (CD2: 4); Michael Bremner (CD2: 5 9, CD3: 1 2) Recording engineers: Hans Lauterslager (CD1: 1 8); Erdo Groot, Roger de Schot, Jan Wesselink (CD1: 9); Vittorio Negri (CD1: 10, 11); John Dunkerley, Colin Moorfoot (CD2: 1 2); James Lock (CD2: 3); Hans-Peter Schweigmann (CD2: 4); Hein Dekker, Erdo Groot (CD2: 5 9, CD3: 1 2); James Lock, Simon Eadon (CD3: 3 9) Recording locations: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, December 1980 (CD3: 3 9); Kingsway Hall, London, UK, May/June 1981 (CD2: 1 2); Henry Wood Hall, London, UK, July & October 1982 (CD1: 1 8), June 1987 (CD2: 5 9, CD3: 1 2); Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria, June 1988 (CD2: 4); Grossersaal, Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria, March 1989 (CD2: 3); St John s Square, London, UK, March 1993 (CD1: 9); Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London, UK, April 1971 (CD1: 10 11) Cover photograph: Kiri Te Kanawa (photo: Decca / Christina Burton) Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji Art direction: Chilu Booklet editor: Bruce Raggatt

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