Word: wagnerism
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...Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Philips). Soprano Hildegard Behrens is a stellar Wagnerian in Leonard Bernstein's incandescent performance of the most erotic of operas...
...major romantic-opera composers, along with enriching the repertory, each toughened the requirements for those who perform their music. In addition to the usual considerations of vocal agility and purity of tone, Wagner demanded endurance, a prodigious memory and a sound that could cut like hot steel through his dense orchestrations. Puccini required singers capable of searing dramatic flights, coupled with limpid lyricism. And Richard Strauss, envisioning his ideal Salome, was only partly joking when he asked for a 16-year-old with the voice of Isolde. No wonder then that outstanding interpreters of such operatic peaks as Briinnhilde, Turandot...
...world is currently waiting for a true Siegfried to climb the Valkyrie rock and rescue productions of Wagner's Ring cycle from the efforts of overstrained tenors, but the air is clearer at the higher vocal elevations. In Hildegard Behrens and Eva Marlon, both in their early 40s, there are two formidable sopranos who between them may rule the dramatic repertory for at least the next decade. Not since the heyday of Birgit Nilsson, now 67 and retired from the opera stage, has there been a singer who dominated the German roles and triumphed in dramatic Italian parts...
...opera of such ambition and scope, coming as it does late in the composer's life, naturally recalls a similar religious epic, Parsifal. Like Wagner's valedictory, Saint François is a spacious work of musical architecture, a cathedral in sound that generates a sense of timelessness or, more precisely, of time suspended. It unfolds at a stately pace, illustrating episodes from the life of the saint (the preaching to the birds, the visitation by an angel, the receiving of the stigmata), animated by the whole range of Messiaen's musical vocabulary. Strong, sharply defined motifs...
...difficult for most opera houses to undertake, and the title role is such an awesome challenge that it is hard to imagine any baritone learning it on speculation. Messiaen's uncompromising aesthetic also places great demands on the listener. But if, as Mark Twain supposedly said, Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds, Messiaen's opera is not as formidable as it seems. Saint François d'Assose is a rare spiritual testament and deserves a wider hearing, perhaps in the concert hall or on records...