Barbara Hendricks - My Favourite Opera: Don Pasquale
Les chœurs du festival, Sinfonietta de Varsovie/Gabriele Ferro
Opera Director: Márta Mészáros
rec. Aix en Provence Festival, 1991.
Picture format: DVD: NTSC 16:9. Sound format DVD: PCM Stereo
Booklet notes: English, German, French
EUROARTS DVD 2001818 [58.27]
This new series from EuroArts looks at singers preparing and
performing a particular favourite role. In this case the singer is the
renowned soprano Barbara Hendricks. Her voice is more that of a leggiero
soprano with colour than a full lyric soprano instrument that can
comfortably ride the typically dense orchestration around Puccini heroines.
Although she has made a film of La Boheme, alongside two of the
participants in this film, she largely eschews these heavier roles and also
the coloratura bel canto repertoire. Hendricks has the ideal
lightness and flexibility of voice to be a near ideal Norina in
Donizetti’s late comic work Don Pasquale, her role in this
film.
Born in 1948 Barbara Hendricks graduated in Mathematics and
Chemistry before studying singing at New York’s famous Juilliard
School. She pays tribute to the participation of family and church in her
vocal development and commitment (CH.6). Her professional singing debut was
at Glyndebourne in 1974. As is noted in this film she is not a fly in and
fly out performer (CH.1). She prefers to take her time to study a role and
production. This is what happens at the Aix en Provence festival filmed here
with the Hungarian feature-film director Márta Mészáros
(CH.3). Various stages of rehearsal are shown: from piano to full orchestral
with costume (CHs.4-5). Her fellow cast members are the French baritone
Gabriel Bacquier, the Canadian baritone Gino Quilico and the Italian tenor
Luca Canonici, each bringing their skills to these scenes and duets. Of
these there are pictures of Barbara Hendricks' putting on her costume on
stage (CH.8). We also see her getting temperamental, whilst in role, with
Don Pasquale and stage slapping his face (CH.10). There is also an extended
scene with Malatesta (CH.9). All show a consummate professional, with an
easy and appealing stage presence, at work alongside committed colleagues.
The above scenes would have been more enjoyable with sub-titles that
are claimed, but not included. Likewise, although the informative booklet
essay is in English, French and German, it is not in Italian. Just to
confirm and underline inaccuracies of presentation, the timing, at over 58
minutes, is more than the 55 minutes indicated on the case. There are some
rather pointless shots of the sun setting behind the nearby Provencal
mountains. We also see a firework display in Aix, a lovely town; a few
minutes footage would have shown its qualities and its locale.
Barbara Hendricks, more than many artists, has a very human interest
in her fellow beings. The United Nations High Commission has reflected this
in her appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador for Refugees. She was invited by
the UN former Secretary-General Kofi Annan to sing at his Nobel Peace Prize
Award in 2001.
As well as recording twelve of her operatic roles, Hendricks has
sung at the great operatic venues around the world and since 1994 at major
Jazz festivals.
This is an interesting film focusing on one of Barbara Hendricks'
favourite roles and successfully shows the detailed nature of her
preparation and the reception of her performance at the Aix en Provence
festival of 1991.
Robert J Farr
Presents an appealing person and a committed professional singer in her favourite opera and role
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