Sig02arg.
qxd 3/1/2008 4:09 PM Page 44
truck drivers. So thousands of copies of ARG
sat in a terminal in Cincinnati. They were
finally delivered December 28—8 days after
they were shipped from our printer (it’s a 3-
1/2 hour drive!). That was a Friday, so we
hoped for a Monday mailing, but the mailing
house didn’t have enough employees working
Dec 31 to do the mailing. Jan 1 is a holiday. We
were lucky to get ARG in the mail January 2—2
weeks after it was ready!! THAT is what the
holidays mean to us: 2-week delays. (We have
dumped that shipping company, but will that
help? The real problem is “the holidays”.)
5. What used to be two holiday days has
become a mass indulgence for many days.
Overview: French and
German Opera
T
here were six names inscribed on the
proscenium arch of the old Metropolitan
Opera House, and among them were
Beethoven and Gounod. In 1883, they were
giants among opera composers—Beethoven
on the basis of a single work. Now, over a cen-
tury later, those two would not be accorded
the same eminence. Aside from Wagner and
Strauss, German opera is seldom performed in
this country. Everyone agrees that Freischütz is
a great romantic masterpiece, but let a compa-
ny mount it and the public will (in Yogi Berra’s
words) stay away in droves. Nicolai’s irre-
sistibly tuneful Merry Wives would do even
worse, while Lortzing, Marschner, and Flotow
are just names in the record catalogs.
We’re told, by way of explanation, that
Americans are simply not attuned to the spirit
of 19th Century German opera—which, aside
from Wagner, offers little in the way of specta-
cle. But the spectacular French grand operas
have fared no better, and there the standard
rationale has been the dearth of proper singing
style. That’s true but inadequate. It would be
easy to put together exciting, if not idiomatic,
casts for any of the grand operas. Our own crit-
ics are certainly knowledgeable about correct
French style; but, as you’ll see below, we’ll
pick, regretfully but emphatically, good
singing over impeccable style every time. What
it all comes down to is a matter of taste, and
taste is unpredictable. It may be that the
legions of American singers who now domi-
nate the world’s opera stages and recording
studios are not all that interested in French
and German opera and not particularly adept
at it. France and Germany themselves are not
Dec 24 and 31 are not holidays, but no one
can be counted on to do any real work. Dec 26
is going the same way. January 2 Cincinnati’s
downtown looked like a ghost town—no one
was working. If you complain about it you are
called names.
6. Then there’s the aftermath: hundreds of
phone calls every week from subscribers won-
dering what happened to their magazine. It
becomes almost impossible for us to
&
get any work done. They may not
believe that the problem is “the holi-
days”. It’s the worst time of the year.
VROON
producing high-magnitude stars who champi-
on their national operas. Great singers of the
not-too-distant past have no counterparts
today: there’s no Crespin, Simoneau, Gröm-
mer, Wunderlich, Janowitz—not even a Vanzo,
Blanc, Bacquier, Rothenberger, or the remark-
ably versatile Gedda.
But technology has preserved their art, and
even the most unfashionable of the operas
under consideration have enjoyed a fair num-
ber of recordings. Conspicuously absent from
our 1996 overview was the most popular of
French operas, Carmen; we dealt with that in
January/February 1991, and we’ll do so again
here.
All the recordings we recommend are
available from either American or European
dealers. See our guide to buying records on the
internet (Mar/Apr 2007).
Fidelio
Beethoven’s only opera has tenaciously held
its place in the repertory in this country. It
should be probably be reserved for special
occasions, like the liberation of occupied
cities; and there’s certainly something monu-
mental and ceremonial about it. Fidelio as
monument is best served by Klemperer’s clas-
sic 1962 EMI account, which is saved from sto-
lidity (“more Bruckner than Beethoven” is
Michael Mark’s assessment) by a superb cast
of singing actors: Ludwig, Vickers, Berry,
Frick—as good in their roles as anyone on
records. It sounds wonderful on CD, and
everyone recommends it (see Nov/Dec 1995).
In 2003, Testament issued a 1961 Klemperer-