MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline

 

Jake HEGGIE (b. 1961)
Three Decembers – a chamber opera (2007) [87.37]
Madeleine Mitchell  - Frederica von Stade (mezzo)
Charlie – Keith Phares (baritone)
Beatarice – Kristin Clayton (soprano)
Instrumental Ensemble drawn from Houston Grand Opera Orchestra/Patrick Summers
rec. live, March 2008, Wortham Theatre Centre, Houston. DDD
ALBANY TROY1073/74
[38.55 + 49.12]

 

Experience Classicsonline


Three Decembers
is a chamber opera by Jake Heggie, a composer still best known for his opera Dead Man Walking. Dead Man Walking which had a libretto by the playwright, Terence McNally. This new opera uses a libretto by Gene Scheer based on one of McNally’s plays.

The play in question, Some Christmas Letters (and a Couple of Phone Calls), is a short three-hander which McNally wrote for an AIDs benefit in 1999. The operatic role of Madeleine Mitchell was written with Frederica von Stade very much in mind. The work was premiered by Houston Grand Opera in December 2007 and has since gone on to have quite a life in American opera houses.

Three Decembers is compact - just two Acts and a short Epilogue - each taking place in a different decade. The opera opens in 1986, Beatrice (Kristin Clayton) and Charlie (Keith Phares) are on the phone discussing their mother’s Christmas letter. Their mother is the famous actress, Madeleine Mitchell (Frederica von Stade) and she is, as usual, away working. This first act explores the relationship between the three of them. The two adult children constantly come back to the thoughts of their absent father, who died in an accident when they were young. Their mother is self-absorbed and randomly negligent of relations. In particular she seems to be unable to accept Charlie’s (male) partner Burt, who is ill with AIDs.

The second Act takes place ten years later, after Burt’s funeral. It becomes apparent that there has been some sort of rapprochement and Madeleine had accepted Burt. But it remains unclear whether this was genuine or whether Madeleine had accepted her daughter’s advice - proffered in the first act - to fake it if she couldn’t be genuine. Relations between the three remain tense, and Madeleine is apparently unable to understand why her daughter should be grieving over Burt’s death. Finally, matters blow up and Madeleine admits that their father’s accident was an invention: in reality their father had problems with alcohol and drugs and committed suicide.

The Epilogue is a short piece which covers Madeleine’s memorial service and the work ends with the dead Madeleine singing in an ensemble with her children.

The piece deals with some pretty tough issues, notably AIDs and the way families deal with secrets. But as the work is based on a Terence McNally play, these issues are dealt with using a great deal of sentimentality. This is reinforced by the melodic nature of Heggie’s music.

When the work opens, the overture sounds as if it could be from a musical, and throughout there are teasing pointers in this direction, along with references to music theatre composers like Kurt Weill. But, when called upon to write a real show-tune for Madeleine, Heggie fails to do so. During Act I, we see Madeleine’s act in Barbados and she sings a song from the new musical in which she is appearing. For this Heggie delivers an interesting aria, but one which would probably have been stronger if it had come out as a full blown show-stopper.

There are a number of hummable melodies in the opera, but often these occur in the more complex areas of the plot. Frankly I would have liked a little more acid, both in the music and in the delivery, so as to balance the sweetness. Heggie and Scheer deal with the Big Issues, but never quite manage to dig deep enough for me.

As Madeleine Mitchell, Frederica von Stade is undoubtedly charismatic and sings Heggie’s music beautifully. But I kept wondering what the role would sound like if performed by a singing actress, rather than a singer who can act; someone like Elaine Stritch or Julia Mackenzie came to mind. If Madeleine Mitchell was played by one of the Golden Girls then she ought to be played by Bea Arthur’s acid-tongued Dorothy or Betty White’s self-absorbed, man-eating Blanche; but on this disc she seems to be played by Rue McClanahan’s soft-edged Rose.

Keith Phares and Kristin Clayton do sterling work as Charlie and Beatrice. There is a lot of conversation in the opera. Phares, Clayton and von Stade make it work naturally, so that the dialogue flows and the big numbers arise out of it. Though that doesn't disguise that the libretto seems to have a lot of words to get through.

There is a big draw-back when listening on disc. Though von Stade is a mezzo-soprano, she was always quite a light one, and Clayton has a rather similar vibrato laden voice so that the two sound rather too similar. On my first listen-through, without looking at the libretto, I found that I got the two confused. The piece would work far better on disc if Clayton had had a more focused, less vibrato-laden, younger-sounding voice.

The singers are accompanied by an eleven-piece ensemble drawn from the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, with pianos played by Patrick Summers and Jake Heggie. They play Heggie’s music with a will and accompany in a convincing and appropriate manner.

The CD booklet includes a complete libretto, which you may well need as the diction is decent without being superb, plus some production photos and a number of interesting essays from Patrick Summers, Jake Heggie and Gene Scheers.

This was an opera that I wanted to like better, but just couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. It is tuneful and accessible and is here given in a committed performance. However, both music and performance would have benefited from a little more grit.

Robert Hugill





 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.