Kathleen Battle was once a bright, wondrous young singer, albeit with a tic or two; sometime in mid-career, however, she took a turn for the worse. Her travails both personal and professional are fairly well known. Two seasons ago, she gave a particularly disastrous recital at Carnegie Hall, in which her technique, and her poise generally, seemed to betray her. It was an extremely hard evening to sit through. Even a Battle-hater—of whom there are more than a few —had to sympathize with her.
The soprano was back in Carnegie Hall on April 19, much improved from that earlier outing. Indeed, we could see why the world had been enthusiastic about her in the first place. With her regular accompanist Martin Katz at the piano, she started out with a group of Schubert Italian songs, only rarely sung. Her singing was clear, refined, and free. Her intonation was infinitely better than before, and it seemed that much of her old confidence had returned. We were reminded of that light, lovely voice, with those silvery tones on top. If this group of songs had a problem, it was that Battle sang them all sweetly; a little more character in the voice, and in the presentation, would have been desirable. This is the sort of charge that has long dogged Kiri Te Kanawa, whom Battle resembles in certain ways.
In Schubert’s very long (German) song Viola, the singer showed charm and delicacy, but in the section that ought to be gloomy and sharper-edged she was rather bland, bloodless. She seemed to be up to her trick of placing every note prettily. Still, her Hirt auf dem Felsen—Schubert’s scena-like song for soprano, piano, and clarinet —was remarkably smooth and appealing, with Battle in admirable control of herself. The extremely labored breathing and exaggerated mannerisms of the past were banished. The entire piece was beautifully shaped. Battle’s clarinetist, Ricardo Morales, principal on that instrument for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, acquitted himself adequately.
Beginning the second half of the recital were the two major arias from Massenet’s Manon, which Battle has for years dearly loved to sing. She did the arias with assurance and panache, bringing true character to Manon. Battle is especially good at conveying flirtation, pride, poutiness, and hauteur (no comments from the peanut gallery). Her uppermost notes aren’t quite as silvery and beautiful as in the past, nor are they held as long, but they still score.
After the Massenet came more French music, this time Ravel’s Shéhérazade, a difficult work, solidly performed. Then four spirituals on the printed program, followed by many, many encores—around eight— most of them spirituals, and all of them convincingly and touchingly sung. I have, to say the least, taken my shots at Battle over the years—haven’t we all, in this line of work?—but one must acknowledge that she is among the most notable voices of our time. It was good to see that her difficulties have not finished her off. And, in the tradition of devoting the final sentence to a remark concerning the accompanist, I should say: Martin Katz was even more superb— more alert, more polished—than usual.
In April, the Metropolitan Opera offered its Samson et Dalila, featuring Plácido Domingo and Olga Borodina, the most outstanding singers in these roles today. With its recent Nabucco (Italian for Nebuchadnezzar), the Met has presented quite a bit of Israelite bondage this season. Like that Verdi opera, Saint-Saëns’s Samson is a heavily choral work, and, as expected, the company’s chorus responded admirably. This opera is a fairly easy one to make seem ridiculous, but here was a production that had dignity, drama, and guts.
Borodina, at thirty-seven in her prime, is thrilling as Dalila, as in so much else. But we ought to take a moment to consider her older colleague, Domingo, who is sixty this year. For decades, he has been a puzzling singer, one of the most uneven in the business. Some nights, he sings magnificently, showing that he belongs in the pantheon of tenors, with Caruso and the rest. Other nights, he is so dismaying—both technically and musically—that one might say, “Tell me again: How did he get famous, and why are all these people here?” In this, he resembles Jessye Norman as no one else.
On the night I attended, Domingo’s singing of Samson’s music was hardly less than definitive: definitive of French singing both creamy and virile. In every act, he was resplendent and gleaming, demonstrating a legato that is very rarely heard. He sang practically without effort; even when at high volume, pouring out passion, he did not push. Everything that he knows—about breathing, about placement, about phrasing, about music—came together. It was hard to say when he had ever sounded better; no concession whatever needed to be made to age. None. At the opera’s high point—“Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” mainly an aria for Dalila but partially a duet—Borodina and Domingo produced some of the most beautifully romantic singing one could ever hope to hear. To have those two voices in the air, entwined, was sensational. This was one of those nights on which the opera house tingles, or pulses.
A couple of other elements deserve notice. As the Old Hebrew, Vaclovas Daunoras, a Lithuanian, contributed his strikingly rich, wet bass voice. And the British conductor Mark Elder handled his responsibilities well. There were some coordination problems in the Bacchanale, but it was nevertheless erotic, primal, and (rightly) shocking.
New York has been abounding in Czech music lately—there seems to be a Czech festival on every block—and the Met did its part with The Makropulos Case, the hard-hitting, cackling opera by Leos Janácek. This is a peculiar work, with a varied and propulsive score. In the pit for these performances was Sir Charles Mackerras, long a champion of Janácek, and possibly his finest interpreter. In appearance, this was another of the Met’s trench-coated productions, spooky and modern, like Busoni’s Doktor Faust earlier in the season.
The star of The Makropulos Case is the opera star of the story, Emilia Marty, here portrayed by Catherine Malfitano. Thus does prima donna—in every sense—meet prima donna. Malfitano was, indeed, marvelously apt. She made her Met debut in 1979, but she seems little the worse for wear. There is occasionally a wobble in her voice, but that voice retains its power, particularly its power to cut: evidently, it can knife through anything, as this character is required to do. Physically speaking, Malfitano is a bombshell (though not a blonde one), and she moves with great freedom, like a young, daring girl. Throughout this strenuous evening, she used her body brilliantly. Her death—talk about a spooky affair—was magnificent.
In the role of Gregor, the American tenor Robert Brubaker shouted somewhat, as he had done in Doktor Faust, but to less harmful effect this time. He sang with the abandon and, ultimately, derangement that the part demands. Another American tenor, Matthew Polenzani, was sweet-voiced as Janek. The German bass Peter Mikulás, singing Kolenaty, was sturdy and pleasantly gruff, achieving a nice characterization. And making a special impression was the American bass-baritone Tom Fox, as Prus. He was regal, commanding, imposing: all suave menace.
The entire production had an exceptional drive and vitality. Sir Charles obviously has this music under his skin. Often, he is a decorous, retiring conductor, but he presided over an affair of not only passion but a fantastic musical wildness.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra did well for itself two years ago when it hired Yuri Temirkanov, a Russian maestro of distinction. He conducts not only the Baltimore now, but also the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. It was there, many years ago, that he served as an assistant to Evgeny Mravinsky, one of the ablest conductors of the century, though he never achieved the renown in the West that he deserved. Temirkanov is a tall man with very long arms who employs a most unusual baton technique. Or rather, it would be a baton technique if he used a baton. He is especially admired for his way with Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, which he has recorded twice, the first time with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he is currently conductor laureate.
His program with the Baltimore, at Carnegie Hall on April 26, began with Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite, one of that composer’s more popular scores. The orchestra sounded rough-hewn and bold, not slick or polished. It sounded soulful and brash. Indeed, it sounded Russian. The Prokofiev was not exactly a model of precision, but it had the right spirit about it, and it was refreshing to hear this familiar (though not often programmed) music, which on so many LP’s of days gone by was paired with Kodály’s equally enjoyed Hary Janos Suite.
The soloist that evening was Lang Lang, an eighteen-year-old Chinese pianist making his Carnegie Hall debut. He is a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studies with Gary Graffman, the American pianist of prodigious technique. Lang’s concerto was the Grieg, traditionally scorned by the sophisticati (or, more accurately, the would-be sophisticati), but beloved, or at least respected, by more than a few serious musicians, including Sviatoslav Richter and Arthur Rubinstein, the second of whom performed and recorded the work repeatedly and defiantly.
Lang had a successful debut, unquestionably. He has many assets, the most notable being a superb rhythmic sense, which cannot be taught, but must reside in the player. His entrance—just to begin at the beginning—was perfectly timed, and very often this moment is botched. Lang’s playing was often beautiful and musical. But he revealed some bad habits, too, including releasing notes early and letting them sort of hang on by means of the sustaining pedal. He frequently produced pinging noises rather than properly pianistic ones. He also skimmed the surface of the keyboard, and failed to give much of a singing line. In several passages, he rushed (despite what I have described as an uncanny rhythmic sense). There was a deficiency of color in his playing, too, and the Adagio, in particular, suffered from a lack of lyricism.
But young Mr. Lang has a clear musical spark, and lots and lots of fingers. The Grieg is a romantic pianistic romp, and Lang played it that way, unabashedly. After the final chords, he jumped up and hugged Temirkanov giddily, unable to contain himself. He then played an encore: a Scriabin piece much loved, and used, by Horowitz. Lang might have been wiser to stop with the Grieg, however, as his playing of the Scriabin was frightfully vulgar: way too fast and totally misjudged. Oddly enough, he was banging away—visibly pounding at the keyboard—but not getting much sound. This is strictly a matter of technique, a problem of not enough arms, too much hands.
Is it right to make criticisms of a tender “prodigy”? Yes—besides which, at eighteen, Lang is not, in pianistic terms, terribly young. His “prodigy” days are behind him. But he is a capable and exciting young musician, which is good enough.
To conclude the concert, Temirkanov led the orchestra in one of the glorious symphonies of Dvorák (more of the Czech presence), the Eighth. This was a straightforward account, with brisk tempos and no nonsense. Yet it was rather too blunt, asking for a little more bend or nuance. The movement marked Allegretto grazioso could have done with more Bohemian swagger and lilt, and the hymn that ends the symphony— reminiscent of the hymn that concludes Brahms’s First Symphony—didn’t lift as it should. Nonetheless, Yuri Temirkanov is a major and compelling conductor, and he is continuing, and enhancing, a distinguished musical tradition in Baltimore.
On May 5, James Levine brought the Metropolitan orchestra and chorus, and a squad of soloists, into Carnegie Hall for a performance of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. He and his troops were greeted with a tumultuous ovation—not just for their general excellence, but for the Verdi Requiem they had delivered in this same hall the week before, one of the most successful concerts of the season.
The Gurrelieder is a strange and awesome work, composed over many years and reflecting, in a way, Schoenberg’s evolution as a composer. The lead soloist was the Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, assuming the part of Waldemar. He was in top form, but unfortunately he often had to struggle to be heard over the orchestra. He should not have had to; this was a (rare) misjudgment by Levine. One could see Heppner straining—red-faced, veins bulging—but could hear nothing. He might as well have not been up there, and Schoenberg surely didn’t intend that. When he could get through, however, Heppner was smooth, regal, and beautiful. There was almost none of the pinched, strangled sound to which he is prone. I should say that I have criticized him severely over the years—especially for his Tristan and his Florestan (from Fidelio), for which he is celebrated—but I have never heard him better than in the Gurrelieder. This was singing of a high order.
The part of Tove was taken by the American soprano Deborah Voigt, who was at her refulgent best, pouring forth an unrippled ocean of sound. The music allowed her to show off her lower register, which is startlingly bold and moving. A critic simply runs out of ways to praise Voigt: when she is on, as she frequently is, she is well nigh faultless. Alongside her as the Wood Dove was the Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Violeta Urmana, fresh from her triumph as Kundry in the Met’s Parsifal. Urmana does not have a particularly distinctive voice—it is like a lot of others—but she can do a great deal with it. She has a gift for characterization, and she is always musically incisive. Her monologue at the end of Part I was hair-raising.
Matthew Polenzani—just off The Makropulos Case—provided some comic relief as Klaus the Jester. His singing was tidy and strong. As the Peasant, Richard Paul Fink, an American baritone, was rich and manly. And it was heartwarming to see Ernest Haefliger, the Swiss tenor, now eighty-two, in the role of the Speaker. He gave a most musical rendering of his (spoken) part, and he even did a little singing, which is to say, he lapsed into some singing, and it was wonderful. It was further heartwarming to see him give reassuring, paternal pats to the (much younger) tenors who were his fellow performers for the day.
The Met chorus was characteristically disciplined and effective, as was the orchestra. James Levine led an intensely virile, muscular performance, which ended in the blinding light of C major, reminding us of the varied and astonishing career of that pesky master, Schoenberg.