Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Ariadne on Naxos(1912) (sung in English) [118:00]
Suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1911-17) [35:11]
Prima Donna/Ariadne - Christine Brewer (soprano)
Tenor/Bacchus - Robert Dean Smith (tenor)
Zerbinetta - Gillian Keith (soprano)
Composer - Alice Coote (mezzo)
Music Master - Alan Opie (baritone)
Dancing Master/Scaramuccio - John Graham-Hall (tenor)
Harlequin - Roderick Williams (baritone)
Truffaldino - Matthew Rose (bass)
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Sir Richard Armstrong
rec. Usher Hall, Edinburgh, January 2010
CHANDOS OPERA IN ENGLISH CHAN 3168(2) [75:11 + 77:43]
I got a hint of the quality this CD would deliver when the SCO played the
Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite with Mackerras
last January. As it turned out, this would be the last concert they played
with him. Strauss is not a composer you most readily associate with a chamber
orchestra, and it is a tribute to the SCO’s versatility that they inhabit
his late-Romantic world every bit as convincingly as that of the Baroque or
Classical. More than that: the smaller forces of a chamber orchestra leaven
the textures of Strauss’s orchestration to a remarkable degree so that
you hear things in the score that might previously have been lost in the luscious
sweep of a full-scale symphony orchestra. Consequently this release provides
the listener with a completely different experience to that of, say, Karajan,
Masur or Sinopoli.
The playing is of gold standard throughout, both in the Bourgeois Gentilhomme
suite and in the opera. As with everything the SCO does, this is primarily
a communal enterprise and the sense of collective joy in the music-making
is manifest everywhere. It helps that they are joined with such a sensational
team of soloists. The face of Christine Brewer smiles at us from the CD cover.
She is, indeed, superb here in what has been one of her signature roles. The
voice is rich, fulsome and sumptuous throughout, especially in Ariadne’s
monologues at the start of the second disc. The love duet is super too, though
Robert Dean Smith’s Bacchus is a little pale in comparison with her.
He isn’t as rich as I have heard him elsewhere, though the distant acoustic
he is given on his first appearance certainly doesn’t help. Gillian
Keith is a slightly brittle Zerbinetta, but she makes the most of every coloratura
opportunity in her big Act 2 showpiece, here called Your gracious royal
highness. Alice Coote’s composer is fussy and sensitive, melting
the ice of her veneer at just the right moments in Act 1; her duet with Zerbinetta
is quite touching. The other roles are well taken, with an especially alluring
trio of Nymphs. The Commedia dell’Arte roles are all played with
tongue-in-cheek humour that doesn’t cheapen them; predictably Roderick
Williams’ Harlequin stands out. The domestic servants of the Prologue
lighten the mood refreshingly as they undermine the arty pretensions of the
performers, though it’s distracting rather than helpful to have Stephen
Fry in the speaking role of the Major-Domo: he is recorded in a (blatantly)
different acoustic and the joins between his sections and the sung passages
are at times rather too obvious.
The translation captures the essence of Hofmannsthal’s German very effectively
and the acoustic, while close, allows you to hear right into every part of
the score. A final mention should go to Sir Richard Armstrong who stepped
in to conduct when Mackerras withdrew. His shaping of the score shows that
he understands very well the dichotomy at the heart of the work, namely the
membrane that separates comedy and tragedy, and he has lots of fun exploiting
it. Unless you’re entirely allergic to opera in English this set will
give you a great deal of pleasure.
Simon Thompson
Unless you’re entirely allergic to opera in English this set will give
you a great deal of pleasure.