The Eternal Gospel receives the Volkov Treatment

Eyes have certainly turned North since the arrival of Ilan Volkov to the post of Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The Eternal Gospel, the highlight of this disc, was performed by the same forces at the BBC Proms last year. Whilst it cannot be counted as the pinnacle of Jan�ček's output, the incensed fervour of the visions of Joachim de Fiore show the composer's dramatic passion coming to fore. The performance on this disc is shapely and exciting, with Adrian Thompson's heralding tones lending some majesty, if not always beauty, to the proceedings. A new suite from Brouček is the other major interest on the disc, preserving music abandoned in the revisions to the work throughout its few performances. The restoration of this music follows Jiř� Z�hradka's new edition of the opera, as performed in Prague and Brno in 2003/4. Other works on this disc include two under-celebrated tone poems, The Ballad of Blan�k and The Fiddler�s Child, both of which are accorded the care they deserve. There is an exciting sweep to Volkov's Jan�ček, and the playing from all is excellent - of particular note is Elizabeth Layton in The Fiddler's Child. It seems that with more than worthy releases of some of the less celebrated works in the composer's oeuvre we are likely to have a non-Czech discography to rival that of Supraphon's editions of these works. The Hyperion performances are superlative: beautifully produced, lovingly, if traditionally packaged - with excellent notes by Nigel Simeone. My only negative note would be that the disc makes for a rather 'perfumed' whole; the listener may want to dip in and out rather than taking the entire disc in one sitting.

�

John Tyrrell's Intimate Letters appears in paperback after a decade.

When Intimate Letters appeared in hardback over a decade ago it opened up Jan�ček's personal life to the world. The detailed analysis of each letter, creating a fluid narrative from Jan�ček's first meeting with St�sslov� in 1917 to his death in 1928. And following their publication the letters found their way into the analysis of every work that the composer wrote following that fateful summer trip to Luhačovice. In fact the St�sslov� information has created an invasion of sycophantic� meanderings on Jan�ček's� 'lost love' and the repercussions.

Whatever ever their influence, the letters have a lot to tell us about the neuroses and challenges of the composer's daily life and his struggle to create new works. This new paperback edition is more than welcome, as the other hardback copy has been officially out of print for a number of years. Whilst the paperback doesn't have quite the sturdiness of the hardback edition (though all the original illustrations are included) it opens up this world again. I pray that people will learn not to equate everything that happens in the composer's works relates to the content of this book.




Decca boxed-set certainly gives you near everything, but some of the performances are bettered elsewhere.

As part of the celebrations of the composer's centenary Decca have pulled together large swathes of their back-catalogue and produced this rather impressive 5 CD set. Therein the chamber works, the piano works and larger orchestral works are all recorded in sterling, if not always exemplary recordings. Whilst Paul Crossley's piano performances are punchy and fine, they miss the rhapsodic ruminatory style of Alain Planes on Harmonia Mundi (a must-have recording).

Likewise the Mackerras recordings of the Sinfonietta and others are bettered on Supraphon's tribute to the composer and indeed the Australian conductor, also released this year. The performance of The Glagolitic Mass is, however, the gem of the set, with Riccardo Chailly and Wiener Philharmoniker and a peerless line-up of soloists blazing through the score. Of course this performance is available on its own on Decca still, and for my mind although the 5 CD set is worth it if you don't have the works on record, the present performances of the String Quartets and the Piano works are to my mind not the first choice of those currently available (though some of these recordings are new to CD).



The Welsh show fire for Mackerras's return to Jenůfa.

Every opera, bar the early Beginning of a Romance and Brouček � a more disappointing omission � has now been recorded by Sir Charles Mackerras. He has recorded K�ťa Kabanov� twice, and there is both a CD and a DVD of his thoughts on The Cunning Little Vixen. Another Jenůfa release is nothing to be sneered at. The great sadness of this new �Opera in English� release from Chandos is that the late Susan Chilcott was to have starred in the title role, yet her illness was too far advanced. There is a touching note of tribute and remembrance to her in the liner notes. Janice Watson is in the unenviable task of replacing the soprano. One longs for the day to see her performance on stage in this country. It�s a staggeringly dramatic performance; surprising in a role which is only enhanced by live performance. Gentile lyricism is quickly succeeded with bracing fortissimos, and a steady pureness at points of beauty in the score.

The rest of the casting is more dubious. Josephine Barstow, whilst having excelled earlier in her career as Jenůfa and then Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case here takes on the demanding role of the Kostelnička (which she recently gave for Opera North). Her voice is not a match for Watson. Whilst her tirades are engaging (thanks largely to Jan�ček�s brutal musical language), they are not an appealing listen. A slight burr on the voice, with a tendency to rasp at points of strain (her monologue in Act Two) leads the listener to thoughts of other greater monsters in this role. Likewise Nigel Robson�s Laca, whilst wholly engaging in the theatre, is not ideal on record � proving that the immediate translation of stage to disc is far from peerless. Those choices in casting don�t sit well with the largely young performers elsewhere. Peter Wedd is a charming �teva, all smarm and fecklessness, though a small voice in a large role � a couple of years too soon for �teva�s constant high tessitura, I thought. Of the supporting roles Alan Fairs as the Foreman of the Mill deserves special mention. Chorus and Orchestra, however, are exemplary. Mackerras pushes them into a frighteningly quick, incendiary performance of the score. From the brittle tappings in the overture to the puncturing brass in the final glorious E flat major tutti, Welsh National Opera�s forces are marvellous. It has always struck me that there is much to link the Czech and Welsh nations: a wholly indigenous language, in a frequently colonised country (of a similar size), a dependency on rural industry and a rich folk culture of its own. In comparison to the beautiful, yet languorous performance from Covent Garden on Haitink�s recording of the opera last year, I would suggest a few more trips down to Cardiff for fiery Jan�ček performances, minus the mixed bag casting this recording has fielded.




Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad:
a review of a new animated DVD of The Cunning Little Vixen

In 1920 the popular Brno newspaper Lidov� noviny bought a series of 200 drawing from a local painter, Stanislav Lolek. The paper�s law correspondent, Rudolf Tĕsnohl�dek, was asked to provide some text for the pictures, and in that form they were issued in just over 50 instalments throughout mid-1920 until the title Bystrou�ka. In 1921 Tĕsnohl�dek published the story as a novel. Jan�ček first saw the cartoons when his maid Marie Stejskalov� showed him cuttings from the paper, and Jan�ček was so entranced that when the novel was later published he formed an opera libretto, which became his own Př�hody Li�ky Bystrou�ky (�The Cunning Little Vixen�).

It is probably the only opera to have been taken from a run of daily cartoons, though the idea of Fred Basset, Garfield or Snoopy suddenly springing into operatic life is an appealing ring of changes from the usual melodrama. Geoff Dunbar has taken Jan�ček�s lead and turned The Cunning Little Vixen into an animated film. The score has been reduced by about 35 minutes, and the singing is in a more reserved (the pre-release information says �cartoon-like�) fashion. The singing is uniformly good, though Grant Doyle�s voice for the Forester is sometimes over young for the sexagenarian we see on screen. Christine Buffle is outstanding as the Vixen, both in the more �cartoon-like� singing, and when at the height of the love duet in Act Two and her railings against the Badger (a hilarious scene) she is in more full voice. The only unconvincing voice is Richard Coxon as the Fox, who sounds too airy for the handsome seducer of Sharp-Ears. Kent Nagano�s command of the score is, however, very good indeed, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin play it very well indeed. It is not necessarily for the music that one should watch this film (though very good, even if the singing is not opera house standard), but for the animation. It is a resounding success. The style juxtaposes clearly drawn animals and humans against more representational watercolour backgrounds. So much detail has been packed in. The setting is, without doubt, Jan�ček�s own country retreat of Hukvaldy. The schoolmaster can be seen teaching in the school where the composer�s own father taught and the forest is more than reminiscent of Bab� hora and the other wooded hills around the village. It is an inspired setting.

What Geoff Dunbar is afforded in his choice of medium is a more vivid portrayal of the animals behaviour (which will almost certainly be a hit with adults and children alike), with a heavy dose of humour. The dog in the Forester�s farmyard is a dopey old thing, the chickens don�t need extra mannerisms, they�re just ridiculous on their own, and the Badger really is the crusty old tycoon of the libretto. The foxes themselves are pretty straightforward, though I do wish the director had avoided dressing the animals in �traditional� folk costumes for the wedding. It�s confusing, and the only point when we see the animals standing around like humans. But perhaps this makes up for the only shortfall of this film, the human element of the opera is lacking. The Forester and the Schoolmaster are there (if only briefly), but the scenes in the pub are cut, giving no sense of the relentlessness of their lives. Whilst the animals are having fun and living life to the full in the forest, we are meant to watch three men grow old over their Pilsner. The amazingly honest and humane priest is only glimpsed (silently) at the opening of the film during the overture. I understand that a film whose obvious intent is to introduce a wider audience to Jan�ček�s work must have to make cuts, but at 90 minutes in total, the opera is hardly over long. It is through the juxtaposition of both animal and human worlds that the ideas of this opera are made clear. The film is more centred on the Vixen's life, and rather than through the mumblings of the pub but through her life is the Forester made aware of his own.

This is however a film and not the opera, a bold new interpretation of the original and will, I hope introduce many new people to both opera and to Jan�ček. It is marvellous that the BBC have invested in this film, which marks another landmark on the acceptance of Jan�ček into the more mainstream frame of classical music. This film has all the charm and life-affirming essence of other great animations, such as Watership Down, The Snowman or even Disney�s Bambi. Of course unlike those films, the Forester�s marvellous epiphany at the end of The Cunning Little Vixen dispels any of the sorrow children may face at the Vixen�s death, but like those previous models we are made more aware of the changing scenes of life. The Forester�s final words are extremely moving. And if Jan�ček�s opera had anything to say to audiences now, it is that life evolves. I only hope that when the film is shown over Easter, enough people are aware that it is on, so they may get to know the warmth of Jan�ček�s dazzling cartoon-opera.

Reviewed by Gavin Plumley 12th April 2003

This DVD can be ordered via the discography page. The Cunning Little Vixen will be shown on BBC Television on Easter Sunday 2003.
�

New recording of Jenůfa is released by Erato (Warner Classics)

The new Erato (Warner Classics) recording of Jenůfa taken from live performances is released on the 3rd February, after originally being announced for November 2002. There are always problems in transferring live performances onto record, luckily for these superlative performances of Jenůfa from Covent Garden last autumn it was only Olivier Tambosi's production that was not a success. The highlights of this new set are many, not least Anja Silja's return to the role of the Kostelnička, Karita Mattila's first appearance in the title-role in Britain, and the outstanding Laca of Jorma Silvasti. It was surprising that Bernard Haitink chose this work out of all the opera repertory he has sought to make his own to conduct in his final season at Covent Garden. His other choice, Tristan und Isolde, was a more obvious choice (something he worked towards throughout his Covent Garden career) and which was very much 'his'. He does not have the command of some of his counterparts, yet these performances are fine enough.

Those used to the pace of the Mackerras release on Decca, or the more rugged interpretations on Supraphon will find Haitink's more romantic measure of this version sometimes at odds with the dramatics of the synopsis. It is beautifully played by the Covent Garden orchestra, but, as with the Vienna Philharmonic under Mackerras, perhaps too beautifully. The stamping of the live performance will be found distracting by some keen on the purity of the studio situation, but I felt it was almost a blessing at times, and makes the conscripts scene in Act One full of enthusiasm. Haitink does invest much in the specifics of the score, rather than merely revelling in the powerful pace of Jan�ček�s drama, and this is no bad thing. Orchestral solos and the more transparent textures of the Brno 1908 version of the score used on this recording (edited by Mackerras and John Tyrrell) benefit greatly from Haitink's attention to detail.

The two lead women are outstanding. Anja Silja may be a little too old for the opera in the theatre, but her voice and presence here on disc surely make her the Kostelnička of recent times. Her tirades as the Kostelnička are among the most frightening I have heard, and she is perhaps even more perspicacious than Eva Randov� under Mackerras. Randov�, incidentally, appears on the present record as the Grandmother, a touching point of casting and a reminder of the old Decca recording guard. Karita Mattila excels in the title-role. The prayer in Act Two (as on her 'Scenes and Arias' release) is intense yet lyrical and her scenes with Laca and �teva are well drawn. At these more introverted moments the beauty of the orchestra's playing is most welcome.

Although not the main selling point of this new release, Jorma Silvasti is a strident Laca, a tenor with much to give in this repertoire (more recently Laca under Ozawa in Vienna). His moments of reflection with Jenůfa, as well as his performance in Act Three, are charming, and his more vitriolic jealous turns are stronger than previous more wimpish interpretations have had us believe. Jerry Hadley as �teva, on the other hand, is not quite the equal of the other principals. His drunkenness in Act One is perhaps a little too vulgar and his voice does show strain in his forgiveness scene with Mattila (Disc 1, Track 7, 5:20) giving little indication of his previous achievements, both on disc (particular in Weill�s Street Scene and The Rake�s Progress) and in the theatre. I cannot imagine that when he sang Laca at Salzburg it was comparable to Jorma Silvasti�s here. The rest of the cast is uniformly sound (particular note going to Jonathan Veira�s foreman), and, as ever, the Royal Opera Chorus excels. Some moments in the sound come across as slightly distant because of the relation between pit and stage, but generally it is good, with the orchestra detail (as mentioned above) being particularly lucid. The booklet is beautifully presented, with many photos of the Covent Garden cast. After the detail of John Tyrrell�s notes in the Mackerras Decca recording, the single essay in Erato�s booklet is a slight disappointment. Some not knowing the production live will find the photos of Frank Philipp Schl�ssmann�s set full of boulders bizarre, but I promise the same was true in the theatre. The recording is, all in all, a great new release (if lacking some of the fire of the Mackerras) and a welcome reminder of this generally fine cast, now thankfully devoid of the asinine production. A delightful addition to the Jan�ček discography.

Reviewed by Gavin Plumley 8th January 2003

This CD can be ordered via the discography page

�