Night After Night

Back to work.

Ideally, this is where I'd be sounding off about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall last night... that is, before some fast-acting stomach bug put paid to that notion. Lieberson happily turned up; unhappily, I did not. A quick scan for feedback finds Alex Ross at a loss for new adjectives (and somewhat understandably distracted besides), but Sieglinde has more than a few lovely words to share. The Times covered a Boston performance; maybe a New York report will follow. And Richard Dyer -- whose impending departure from the Boston Globe so distracted Alex, and rightly so -- penned the loveliest tribute to the Boston performance that one might hope for. Tommasini's report made me somewhat sad to have missed the Monday night NYC reprise; Dyer's review made me positively heartsick.

Meanwhile, I was back in the saddle tonight at Stern Auditorium for Earl Wild's 90th birthday concert, and a more elegant evening of patrician pianism I could hardly wish for. After setting the tone with his stately transcription of the Adagio from Marcello's D-minor Oboe Concerto, Wild played Beethoven's Sonata No. 7. I could imagine a more transparent and precisely rendered reading, but not a more completely dramatized one: The room could scarcely breathe for the gravitas Wild found in the Largo, to the extent that the playful Menuetto came as a sigh of relief. The final Rondo was a giddy dash.

Wild opened Liszt's Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este with sun-dappled ripples, offering a vision so picturesque it verged on cinematic. A flexible, impulsive Chopin G-minor Ballade closed the first half. After the intermission, Wild offered more familiar Chopin: the Scherzo No. 2, Ballade No. 3 and Fantaisie-Impromptu No. 4, the last a furtive, fleeting dazzle that fairly sighed into song. Wild closed the program with his Jarabe Tapatio, a play of bluesy virtuosity spinning variations on the Mexican Hat Dance. A rousing ovation brought Ned Rorem scampering out to accompany the audience in a rendition of "Happy Birthday." The evening ended with a single encore, which sounded like a Rachmaninoff miniature (and which Jed Distler subsequently suggested to have been one of Wild's Rachmaninoff song transcriptions), a hushed patter of raindrops playing over a melancholy ballad.

Throughout the evening, I was struck again and again by Wild's still-generous virtuosity at 90, as well as the general rightness of his readings -- flexible, personal, but never ostentatious or trashy. It's pianism without mannerism, a strain increasingly hard to find. Jed had the best line of the evening: "Earl Wild makes me proud to be an American artist." And somehow, despite the cell phones, the apparent outbreak of emphysema and the woman in the back row who didn't seem to understand how the balcony overhang amplified her constant whispering to her neighbor, I still managed to lose myself in beauty for the most part.

Wow, feels good to stretch these muscles again! There was no live music consumption during my Houston sojourn, although I did catch several lengthy stretches of a Houston Grand Opera Roméo broadcast on NPR's World of Opera that put to shame the Met's opening night on any number of levels. As in New York, Ramón Vargas was a handsomely sung Roméo; in Houston, he was partnered with the Juliette of Ana María Martínez, whose praises were recently sung by vilaine fille. (Now, granted, I haven't heard Dessay and probably won't until March...)

Anyway, I'm belatedly filling my dance card for the next few weeks, to the extent that I'm very nearly exhausted just looking at my calendar: Janine Jansen and Neeme Järvi's NJSO doing the Britten Violin Concerto at NJPAC... An American Tragedy at the Met... Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto at Carnegie Hall... Charles Curtis playing Alvin Lucier at Diapason...

Still, I plan to update the blogroll this weekend, so if you've linked to me and I've not repaid your kindness, please rattle my cage. I have definitely noticed some welcome links from blogs I dig, for which I'm genuinely grateful. I've also spotted one that puzzles me just a little bit, although I'm no less appreciative. It seems that my Marcello Giordani gush earned a spot on the blogroll at Viviane's Sex Carnival. (Only a few friends and colleagues know just how ironic that particular citing is.)

Playlist:

Anti-Social Music - Sings the Great American Songbook (Peacock)

Joseph Haydn - Trio in G; Ludwig van Beethoven - Variations on "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu"; Franz Schubert - Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat - Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals and Alfred Cortot (Naxos)

Terminal condition.

While I did threaten to freeze this blog and auction off screen shots if Rick Moody were to drop by, once it happened I decided against that course of action. However, this will in fact be my last post for a while, since I'm meeting up with my significant other in the Atlanta airport tomorrow afternoon, then heading down to Houston for Thanksgiving with my family. I don't get down there as often as I should -- and it's keenly important at this point, since I haven't seen my sister and nephew since the kid was a month old. He's now two-and-a-half, and I'm seriously verging on Bad Uncledom.

Still, it's not like I'd leave town without providing some way in which friends, colleagues and total strangers might mull over my personal obsessions. So here are two suggestions.

First, like Cafe Aman's Anastasia Tsioulcas, I review new CDs monthly for Weekend America, a smart, lively magazine-format radio program produced and distributed by Minnesota Public Radio. This weekend, I'll be talking about two recent CDs of contemporary music that I really dug. One is a new Ondine disc of Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto, Gran Duo and Chorale, performed by Kari Kriiku and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. (An excellent review of that disc by Andrew Clements of London's Guardian can be found here.) The other is Deviations, the long-awaited solo debut of guitarist Dominic Frasca on Bang on a Can house label Cantaloupe, which includes original pieces, works by Marc Mellits and a jaw-dropping version of Philip Glass's Two Pages. In most of the country, I believe the show airs on Saturday afternoons; for those in benighted burgs that don't receive the program (such as, ahem, New York City), there's a podcast available on the show's website, and you can also stream archived shows.

The second attraction springs from the pop-music section of this week's TONY, where I gave an "MP3 of the Week" shout-out to a young Mexican rock band whose music has been one of my fondest discoveries this year. Sadly, I can't remember the name of the alternaLatino music news site on which I first read about Album some months ago, but here's what I wrote:

If Cafe Tacuba's influential 1994 release, Re, is the Sgt. Pepper's of Mexican alt-rock (and the band's 1999 Reves/Yo Soy the "White Album"), then Eureka Sön, the 2003 debut full-length by Monterrey-based quartet Album, might well be the scene's Paul's Boutique or OK Computer -- maybe both. Currently out of print, you can find the entire release (and a whole lot more) available for free download from the band's website. Album's sophomore full-length, Microbricolages, is due sometime next year on a label to be determined; "Es Facil," the initial single, is just under two minutes' worth of manic synth-bop pinned to a warbling bass line and a stuttering beat.

Now admittedly, I do understand exactly how hyperbolic those claims are. Still, I can definitely tell the difference between a new band whose music catches my interest for a minute or two and one that I'll spend time anxiously waiting to hear from. Album falls into the latter category. So while I'm gone, please take a moment to stop by the website and test-drive a track or two. I'd love to hear what you think. Here, let me help you:

Album - "Es Facil" (MP3, 2.47 meg.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Playlist:

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Garden of Spaces; Clarinet Concerto*; Cantus Arcticus - Richard Stoltzman*, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Leif Segerstam (Ondine)

Mary Halvorson/Jessica Pavone - Prairies (Lucky Kitchen)

Taylor Ho Bynum and SpiderMonkey Strings - Other Stories (Three Suites) (482 Music)

Anthrax - Alive 2 (2005) (Sanctuary)

Album - Eureka Sön

Rush - R30 (Zöe/Rounder)

Bohuslav Martinů - Memorial to Lidice; Gideon Klein - Partita for Strings; Bela Bartók - Concerto for Orchestra - Philadelphia Orchestra/Christoph Eschenbach (Ondine)

Eleanor Sandresky - A Sleeper's Notebook (One Soul)

A few short notes from the end run.

While JSU got there first, I will duly report -- having been among those who repeated La Cieca's initial scoop -- that apparently, the "flying bed" in the Met's current Roméo set sail once again last night, with Natalie Dessay aboard. Nor was the bed the only thing floating -- the Associated Press reviewer was, too, to judge by this.

We already know that John von Rhein was immune to the charms of The Midsummer Marriage, while Wynne Delacoma did her level best to appreciate it. Heidi Waleson is yet to be heard from, and my official review will presumably hit the subscriber-only Musical America site Tuesday morning, after which I'll feel free to summarize the highlights. Meanwhile, you can see a few choice images from the premiere at Playbill Arts, such as this shot of former gymnast Paul Christiano as Strephon during the first of the Ritual Dances. Whatever you made of the piece (or more specifically, the libretto), ain't no denying this was a bitchin' show.

In more sober news, here's wishing a speedy recovery to Cheryl Studer, who suffered what was reported to be a minor heart attack prior to a Madrid recital on Friday. ("Minor heart attack" strikes me as an oxymoron right up there with "jumbo shrimp" and "working vacation.")

Playlist:

Benjamin Britten - Violin Concerto - Daniel Hope, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Paul Watkins (Warner Classics)

Corey Dargel - Less Famous Than You (as yet unreleased, but surely the contemporary-classical-smart-pop breakthrough hit of 2006, mark my words...)

Franz Schubert - The Complete Songs, Vols. 28, 33 & 34 - Graham Johnson a.o., including Ian Bostridge in Die Schöne Müllerin, Matthias Goerne in Winterreise and the likes of Gerald Finley, Juliane Banse and Thomas Hampson elsewhere (Hyperion)

Klapa Sinj - Mediterranean Sounds/Croatia's Mystic Voices (Nenad Beach Music)

Slow Six - Private Times in Public Places (If.Then.Else)

Chicago, overheard.

"My one claim to fame is that I once almost killed Michael Tippett..." - Man standing on the stairs after Act One of Lyric Opera's The Midsummer Marriage on Saturday night. *

"The opera is totally awful. [pause] Yeah, it's a modern opera; I should have known it would be awful, like how any time you go to the symphony and it's a modern symphony, it's always awful." -- Man on a cell phone in the bathroom queue, moments after the above.

Since I'm being paid for a detailed opinion that has yet to appear, I'll say only this: The new production of The Midsummer Marriage at Lyric Opera of Chicago is a glorious evening of singing, dancing and playing. Also, stage construction and lighting. Really, it's a brilliant show. Whether it actually manages to overcome Tippett's idiosyncrasies to reveal the work as a masterpiece is subject to debate, but this production does make the strongest possible case -- and Sir Peter Hall even provides a visual cue attempting to explain the story's trippiness.

Already, John von Rhein's Tribune review is here. Although I was a lot more enthusiastic in  summation, most of my conclusions weren't all that far afield. I'll be interested to find out what Heidi Waleson, the only other New York critic I spotted, has to say. [Update: Wynne Delacoma's review is here.]

In my absence, my humble blog has continued to provide a nexus for ongoing revelations of connectivity between Marc Geelhoed, Amy Dissanayake, David Rakowski and Daniel Felsenfeld -- now also including Rick Moody. (If he turns up and posts here, I swear I'm going to freeze the entire site and sell screen shots on eBay.)

[* Yes, I know, I should have lingered to catch a little more of that exchange. But, unaware of how much more generous than Met are Lyric intermissions -- or maybe it just takes longer getting up the aisle in the Met -- I was in too great a hurry to get from Overheard the First to Overheard the Second.]

Goin' to Chicago.

Hardly two weeks into rehearsals, tenor Hugh Smith either jumped or was bought eased out of Sir Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage at Lyric Opera of Chicago. A week later, director Sir Peter Hall -- whose work in Houston Grand Opera's world-premiere run of New Year, Tippett's deeply weird yet utterly magical fifth and final opera, initially bit me with this bug I have yet to shake -- also pulled out, due to failing health. This, I'm assured, is completely legit. To finish his work, Hall deputized choreographer Wayne McGregor. But from all reports, this remains a Hall production.

That this show should already seem star-crossed -- there's that term again! -- feels curiously expected, given the continuing inability of Tippett's works to gain a solid toehold among American audiences. Still, the show must go on, and thus I'm headed to Chicago for opening night, which I'm reviewing for Musical America. I'm especially eager to see the visuals of Alison Chitty, whose New Year design was a genuine miracle of stagecraft, and to hear Sir Andrew Davis's command of this luxurious score by a composer whose works he has so ardently championed over the years. And, given Vilaine Fille's privately shared hosannas, I'm also looking forward to encountering this particular opera house for the first time.

I don't expect to be connected while I'm away, so this is probably the last you'll hear from me until Sunday night, at least. But before I go, I want to lament aloud the apparent passing of the beautiful star-hung marital bed in Act Four of the Met's current Roméo -- the one thing that JSU, Wellsungs Alex and Jonathan, and I all pretty much agreed to be a success in the new production. Thing is, I actually remember wondering just what would happen if a cable snapped. During Natalie Dessay's first performance on Thursday night, that's exactly what occured just before the curtain rose, according to La Cieca, who reports that the bed will remain grounded for the remainder of the run. Grim news, and disappointing given that this was the premiere's one real ahhhh moment. I'm eager to hear of Dessay's performance, but more concerned that she's simply okay.

Playlist:

Felix Mendelssohn - A Midsummer Night's Dream - Overture; Lobgesang - Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig/Riccardo Chailly (Decca)

Robert Fripp - Love Cannot Bear (DGM)

Dark Funeral - Attera Totus Sanctus (Candlelight)

Various Artists - Tommy Boy Hip-Hop Essentials, Vols. 1 & 2 (Tommy Boy)

It's a small, small world.

Marc Geelhoed (of Deceptively Simple, and my Time Out Chicago counterpart), in reponse to a blog entry by Daniel Felsenfeld (of Felsenmusick) wondering just who Marc is, took a moment today to answer Danny's question. In the process, Marc gives a shout out to his partner, piano phenom Amy Dissanayake.

Felsenfeld, meanwhile, posted with great vigor and enthusiasm this afternoon regarding the music of prodigious composer David Rakowski.

Why is this a scintillating pas de deux? Because Dissanayake, it so happens, is one of Rakowski's most ardent supporters and gifted interpreters. Danny even reviewed one of her two marvelous recordings of Rakowski's etudes in TONY, almost exactly one year ago to the day. (I couldn't retrieve that review on the flashy new TONY website tonight, but you can find it at the halfway point of this page on Rakowski's site.)

Danny, meet Marc. Marc, Danny. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to decide whether this construes one degree of separation, or two?

Playlist:

Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky - Danse russe from Swan Lake; Aram Khachaturian - Nocturne from Masquerade; Camille Saint-Saëns - Havanaise and Introduction et Rondo capriccioso; Dmitri Shostakovich - Romance from The Gadfly; John Williams - Main Theme from Schindler's List; Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending; Maurice Ravel - Tzigane - Janine Jansen, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth (Decca)

Marcus Schmickler/John Tilbury - Variety (A-Musik)

Daniel Kelly Quartet - Duets with Ghosts (as-yet unreleased)

Mary Halvorson/Jessica Pavone - Prairies (Lucky Kitchen)

Johann Sebastian Bach - Goldberg Variations - Simone Dinnerstein (as-yet unreleased)

Video illed the radio star.

A wearying day climaxed in a loud, lights-cameras-action! media party in the office space to launch the newest TONY affair, an on-demand NYC cable TV channel devoted to translating our staff editors' picks and pans to sound and vision on your tube -- if you're in NYC or NJ, anyway. Some predicted results: Theater critic Adam Feldman is headed for stardom, while yours truly -- whose tubular debut is still at least a few weeks away -- should be headed to the gym for some serious treadmill time. Uggh.

The most unexpected thing I learned tonight, I have to admit, is that Ereka Vetrini, the host with whom I taped my yet-to-be-aired initial segments, was a contestant on the first season of the NBC-TV series The Apprentice. I hadn't known this -- and feel like a dork for not knowing, even if I genuinely dislike reality TV. For the record, Ereka's intensely sweet and a real pleasure to work with -- not to mention much more beautiful in person than in any photo I could find through trawling the net. (Including those FHM shots, so don't bother sending them to me.)

Once the shindig was over, I labored for a few more hours, with Harnoncourt's new Messiah blazing in my ears for the first time. Not entirely sure what I think of this intrepretation on the whole, and one of the soloists truly pained me, another less so. But Gerald Finley, who so rocked my boat in Doctor Atomic and a new CD of Ives songs on Hyperion, proves once again that his is a voice to be reckoned with. "The trumpet will sound" is something to be savored.

Later, I spent more time with pianist Simone Dinnerstein's newly recorded, as-yet-unreleased take on Bach's Goldberg Variations, which I'm increasingly thinking will be a major story when it finds its public. (While there's more to say, you'll find my initial thoughts in the comments field of the post that appears below this one, in reponse to JSU's query. Google also turned up an interesting article on Dinnerstein and the Goldbergs by David Patrick Stearns, which you can find here.) She'll be playing this piece on November 28 at Weill Recital Hall, and I'm thinking I might should be there.

Since I've little else to add, I'll point your direction elsewhere: While it may be breaking some unwritten pact of writer/editor decorum to say so, it's things like this that makes me state without reservation that The Artist Known As Vilaine Fille is unquestionably one of the finest, most lucid scribes currently wrapping prose around the art of singing. This kind of writing begs to be read, and re-read. And while she might well smack me for so confessing, the ability my job affords me to occasionally facilitate some of this writing is among the prime joys of the gig.

Blog and roll.

More voices have been added to the discussion of last night's Roméo. Sieglinde (to whom, happy anniversary) had the harshest words initially, but softened somewhat overnight. JSU draws attention to the general nervousness of the evening, and hopes for improvement with Dessay's arrival. Wellsungs Alex and Jonathan also had pointedly critical comments well worth reading. (A&J also helpfully provide links to Associated Press and New York Times reviews online, so do pay a call.)

Meanwhile, due to a combination of unlikely, unpredictable and unfortunate production issues -- and yes, let's face it, human error -- I was gently informed today that two-thirds of my feature on conductor David Robertson did not actually make it to the printed page in the new issue of TONY. (By afternoon, the error was being referred to in the office as "the perfect storm.") Everyone was duly apologetic; everyone tiptoed around me for most of the day. I'm positive I strained a few muscles exercising diplomatic skills well above and beyond the norm.

Now, truly -- in what I personally came to refer to as the "sulphur lining" of this sorry tale -- I'm genuinely glad that this happened to a piece I wrote myself, as opposed to a contribution from a freelancer. That would be an unbearable phone call to make. But the really sad part, on the other hand, is that this was a piece I actually cared quite a lot about; David Robertson is an artist I admire rather intensely, all the more so after spending a morning speaking with him about music, art, and what is genuinely good about the St. Louis Symphony, and in American society.

As a way of making amends, TONY is going to put the entire article on the new, improved company website tomorrow -- a big deal, actually, since the whole site is actually being relaunched tomorrow with a big splash. Before now, as followers of Vilaine Fille have surely sussed, most features don't reach the site until they're buried in the archives six to eight weeks after publication. I'll update with a direct link when the time comes. [Update: The time has come, and the piece is here, free of charge and no registration necessary.]

On the bright side, my other article in the new issue -- an interview with Ville Valo, charismatic and funny singer for the Finnish glam-goth "love metal" band H.I.M. that appears in the pop section -- made it to the printed page with no difficulties. And in the classical section, Marion Lignana Rosenberg's review of the new Naxos CD by Ana María Martínez is well worth reading. [Update: One feature of the new TONY website is that articles like these two will be available online immediately -- but you'll have to register in order to get them. The H.I.M. feature is here, and Marion's CD review is here.]

I don't usually spend this much time boosting what's in the mag, but I'm still cheering myself up, okay?

Playlist:

Johann Sebastian Bach - Goldberg Variations - Simone Dinnerstein (as-yet unreleased demo)

Eleanor Sandresky - A Sleeper's Notebook (One Soul)

The Ramones - Weird Tales of the Ramones (Sire/Rhino)

Caro nome.

One night after hearing Marcello Giordani in William Tell at the Met, I got a most unexpected treat. While I was definitely sorry that Natalie Dessay wasn't up to the premiere of Roméo et Juliette at the Met tonight (and really do hope that my schedule allows me to hear one of her remaining performances), I instead got a chance to re-encounter Maureen O'Flynn, the soprano responsible for my personal damascene conversion, so far as opera is concerned.

As I've confessed previously, it was O'Flynn's "Caro nome" in a Houston Grand Opera Rigoletto during the '89-'90 season -- opposite the young Giordani and Leo Nucci -- that well and truly provided my first glimmering of what a night at the opera could be. Before that single moment, I'd been put off by all the dated pageantry and insider bloat, to the point that I couldn't see any reason to be concerned with musty old shows about musty old characters. But O'Flynn's liquid, effortless voice and utterly absorbing emotion in that one aria, expressing intense devotion to a cad that we observers know is going to play her wrong, shook me up in a way I still have trouble describing adequately.

Maybe it was just a realization that no matter how times change, human behavior is pretty consistent. Gilda's ravishing gush over someone we know to be a bad apple is a painful place we've all visited at one time or another. Subtract the historical distance and funny costume, and she's your best friend blurting intimacies between classes, on the phone, by e-mail, whatever. You want to tell her to be careful, but there's no getting that point across. That might seem obvious, but it was a point no professor or textbook had managed to convey in such pointedly human terms before. Something in the radiant passion and utterly innocent trust O'Flynn conveyed that night did the trick -- and it's no hyperbole to say that I've never looked at opera in the same way since.

Did I have the same sense of epiphany tonight? No, but then, why should I have expected to? You only lose it once. O'Flynn's Juliette was beautifully sung, no question. Her voice felt smaller here than it had in Houston, but it was no less precise, effortless and beautiful, and it certainly filled the hall at climactic moments. Dessay would likely (and will probably still) have brought the platinum ping of a superstar charting unfamiliar ground, but O'Flynn's solid performance most likely made me the most happy fella in the house.

I wasn't all that overwhelmed with the new production, an initially attractive but ultimately static affair that left me scratching my head pondering relations to Copernicus, Kepler, MC Escher and Swatch watches -- save for the gorgeous Act Four visual of a matrimonial bed hung among the stars. Ramón Vargas gave what struck me as a handsomely Italianate performance, thrillingly secure high notes and all. Stéphane Degout (as Mercutio), Dimitri Pittas (as Tybalt) and Joyce DiDonato (as Stéphano) provided the evening's most involving action.

My hero.

Anyone who knows me soon also knows that when it comes to tenors, Marcello Giordani is my main man. Part of that probably has to do with formative bonding. I was way too young for my very first operatic experience, which was (I kid you not) Jon Vickers in a Houston Grand Opera Peter Grimes, when I was in high school and knew far less than the little I know now. Since the Adams and Glass operas I favored in college and just after didn't really offer the stuff of full-blown awe -- Sanford Sylvan's Chou En-lai perhaps the exception (and not a tenor, mind you!) -- the first hero to well and truly rock my aesthetic boat was the 20-something Giordani, a cocky, sinister-but-seductive Duke of Mantua at HGO circa 1989.

When the immediate superstardom I'd anticipated for Giordani failed to materialize, I initially wondered... and then then lost track. Of course, his subsequent vocal crisis has now been well publicized. Although it's clearly still painful, Giordani willingly speaks of his travails now, as something of a cautionary tale. I spoke to him about it for TONY when he came to the Met for Il Pirata, opposite Fleming. This singer worked hard to rehabilitate his instrument, and when his second chance arrived, he surely delivered. I thrilled to his appearance in that production, as well as his following triumph in Benvenuto Cellini.

Giordani did it for me again in the Opera Orchestra of New York's William... er, sorry, Guillaume Tell at Carnegie Hall tonight. The voice was spot on, secure and ringing even -- especially! -- from my odd perspective at fifth row, center. His pièce de résistance, of course, was the one-two punch of "Asile héréditaire" and "Amis, amis, secondez ma vengeance." Giordani threw himself into the cabaletta heart and soul, stalking each side of the stage in turn, and letting the high notes rip. And perhaps since Giordani had been utterly gracious in acknowledging collaborators all night long, it didn't seem at all like hubris when he responded to the crowd's uproar by reprising the last stanza of "Amis..." As he lurched toward the stage door during the repeat, I half expected one of James Brown's handlers to rush out and toss a robe over his shoulders, escorting him to the wings... only to have the tenor shrug it off and belt a few more high C's for good measure. Like the Godfather of Soul, Giordani knows what the crowd wants, and delivers it.

He was well-matched by what struck me as a superlative cast... even the smallest parts were remarkably well delivered. You probably don't need me to tell you that Marco Chingari presented a richly voiced Tell. (He did.) Angela Maria Blasi, as Mathilde, offered meltingly beautiful sounds and exacting diction; her "Sombre forêt" was another show stopper. Other big moments included the radiant faith Ellie Dehn projected as Jemmy when reassuring dad prior to the arrow-through-the-apple scene, and the utterly gorgeous trio of Blasi, Dehn and mezzo Heather Johnson (who I'd previously heard only in a scattering of disjunct notes during Wuorinen's Haroun) at the opening of Act Four's second scene. Paul Mow (as Rodolphe) and Patrick Carfizzi (as Gesler) dug into their nasties, serving up sumptuous menace. And while buzzed-about Fisherman Stephen Costello was a bit raw, his instrument holds unquestionable promise.

Since I'm reasonably certain I spotted La Cieca a couple of times tonight, more insightful dish is no doubt forthcoming. And since Tony Tommasini was in tha house, a Times review is presumably on the way. But I'll close by reporting the response of the rapt observer who sat next to me tonight, who offered that he hadn't heard a more overwhelmingly high-voltage operatic performance in this hall since Semele. (And even I know what that means.)

Playlist:

Witold Lutoslawski - Symphony No. 1; Silesian Triptych*; Jeux vénitiens; Chantefleurs et Chantefables*; Postludium I - Olga Pasiecznik*, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit (Naxos)

Witold Lutoslawski - Symphony No. 4; Les Espaces du sommeil*; Symphony No. 3 - John Shirley-Quirk*, Los Angeles Philharmonic/Esa-Pekka Salonen (Sony Classical)

Eliane Radigue - Adnos I (Table of the Elements)