René Pape’s Gurnemanz Is Featured on New Mariinsky Recording of Parsifal Released September 14

By -
“Singing his first Met performances in the role of the steadfast knight Gurnemanz, René Pape was a revelation. … His refined yet stentorian singing demonstrated that there need not be a dichotomy between crisp diction and legato phrasing.” – The New York Times

While René Pape is preparing to sing the title role of Boris Godunov for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera, the Mariinsky label releases its recording of Parsifal featuring the bass in a role for which he has garnered much critical praise: Gurnemanz. Taken from live performances in St. Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev in June 2009, the four-disc Super Audio set, available today (Sep 14) in the US, is the first commercial recording of a Wagner opera led by the Russian maestro (who also conducts the Boris production in October). Pape's fellow cast members on the recording include Violeta Urmana as Kundry and Gary Lehman as Parsifal.

A New Yorker review of Pape's performance in a 2003 Met production of Parsifal was a fount of praise: “The evening belonged to the young German bass René Pape, whose performance as Gurnemanz astounded everyone. Wagner wanted more than anything to hear his words etched in the air, and he would have leaped to his feet for Pape; every syllable shot out to every seat in the house. The magnitude of the voice was almost frightening – I’m not really sure how in the Good Friday Spell he managed to sing an extended high D at the end of a long, unbroken phrase, then swell his voice for the note that followed. He sang, as Domingo sings, with the conviction of a born actor. When Parsifal kills an innocent swan in Act I, Pape had us grieving for the dirty white prop onstage.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more