Farewell to Adam Plachetka

Today the last concert of the bass-baritone Adam Plachetka took place in Prague. Don't worry about his health, he's just starting next season at the Wiener Staatsoper. :-) Dear Wieners, take good care of him, don't make him appear in crazy productions, and let him get back to Prague as often as possible!

At mere 25 years of age, Mr.Plachetka has got an extremely beautiful voice, excellent technique, breathtaking expressiveness and an artistic approach of a middle-aged Met soloist. His artistic intelligence is way ahead of his age, and he is a wonderful actor, too.

His today recital with piano compiled of a selection of songs by Mozart, Sibelius, Ravel's Songs of Don Quijote, topped with four Schönberg's Cabaret Songs. Having heard Mr.Plachetka several times in full operas, never a concert, I must admit that I didn't expect he would make me laugh with Mozart's Warnung, or nearly shred a tear with Sibelius's Säf, Säf, Susa or Svarta Rosor. For the last four cabaret songs, he had a high chair brought on stage, changed his bow tie for a red one, put a red flower in his lapel and acted a cabaret singer. I still laugh when I remember it! The encores were my beloved Impossible Dream and On the Street Where You Live. The atmosphere was simply great. I can't remember the last time my hands hurt from applauding. The pianist, David Švec, had to ostentatiously close the piano keyboard to show that there would be no further encores (what a pity). Oh, yeah, and besides all the voice and acting and intelligence and sense of humour, he does look as good as on this photo *swoon*!

So, don't overuse him in Vienna, return him if possible, and if not, definitely go and see him. He might appear elsewhere in Austria, and in 2012 he's going to be doing Masetto at ROH. Quite a career ahead of him, let us enjoy him while we can. We are going to hear about this man.

Meet... Cyprien Katsaris

Cyprien Katsaris has taught me that you can admire a person and laugh at (with?) him at the same time - positively speaking, of course. I truly admire his genius, and yet am more often than not unable to watch him with a straight face. Gotta love the hair :-)

Now, seriously: He's my favourite pianist of today, at least as far as Chopin is concerned. Trying to be objective, he's certainly "one of" the finest pianists. (And, seriously, don't you ever cut your hair short!)

Thanks to a friend of mine, I discovered this video. Few videos on YouTube make you fall off your chair in laughter just to make your jaw drop a few seconds after. And then make you laugh, and then make your jaw drop, and again, and again... Just amazing.

I don't know what he had smoked before this, but I want it too! :-D Bach's Toccata & Fuga faster than ever...

So that we don't just show the curiosities: Cyprien Katsaris playing The Flight of the BumbleBee by Rimsky-Korsakoff / Cziffra - in Cziffra's presence, in 1975.

Last, but not least: Mr. Katsaris is a magician when playing Chopin, here's one of my little favourites:

I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for uploading to Sissco, dafuckinmart, jaimeleclassique, and tosa1gou, respectively. I love you, Cyprien, please come to the Czech Republic sometime! ♥

Jan Martiník: A New Hope for Czech Opera

['jan 'marciɲi:k] This young Czech bass at first wanted to study Medicine, like his father. Luckily, his talent was discovered when he was still at secondary school. Since then, he has been third at the Elena Obrazcova's competition in Moscow, a finalist of Operalia, and a winner of the Art Song Prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

Here's why:

Meet... The Countertenor

Countertenor, compared to other voice types, is quite obscure to the pure Puccini-Verdi opera goers. But you don't want these faces when you first hear it, do you?
With the use of falsetto, men can achieve a sound quite similar to that of castrati. When you get used to the pitch, you realize that the timbre is distinctly male, or at least not female. That's what gives the voice the quality that many people describe as "angelic." Some even prefer the countertenor to the female voices. However, falsetto is difficult to master, and only with a great amount of talent and hard work you can be a good countertenor.

Frufru's favourite countertenor is without doubt Philippe Jaroussky. Here, at the "Artiste lyrique," he sings Vivaldi's Vedro con mio diletto (beating Roberto Alagna in the competition)

Something for coloratura lovers:

Just in case you don't believe their speaking voices are "normal" (or that they don't have a sense of humour) - Sombrero:

Countertenors can be encountered even on the pop scene. Just for fun, here's Vitas's Il dolce suono (Lucia di Lammermoor):

Thanks to Vitorvhs, BaroqueFever, MehdiCaps, and rxsuicide, respectively, for uploading.

Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy

My first operatic post here cannot be on anyone else than the person thanks to whom I listen to this beautiful genre of music. I had been acquainted to the performances of The Three Tenors, Bocelli, and others who are considered popular opera singers and who perhaps have set many people’s footsteps on the path of classical music. However, it was the smashing tour de force of Lanza’s voice, together with the incomparable heartfelt interpretation, what really caught my heart.

It is a twisted humour of the Fate that the one who could have become the greatest tenor in history died so prematurely, having made so few truly great recordings. His good looks turned out to be more of a curse, rather than a blessing. After a couple of years in Hollywood, everything started turning against him. The classical music critics started savaging him, resulting in a loss of his self-confidence, so vital for a performer.

The studio needed him to be slim for the filming, so he would put on weight for making of the soundtrack, and then quickly put it off for the shooting. As years passed, simple dieting would not work, so Lanza had to take medicines. He started having problems with phlebitis. Heavy drinking did not help his physical state.

After his moving to Italy, he made two more films and was planning to do more serious work. A TV spectacle with Maria Callas, or Pagliacci on stage of the Opera Roma season opening were on his schedule, but it was too late. Mario Lanza died on October 7^th 1959 of pulmonary embolism, aged 38.

You’ll find a more detailed biography in Derek McGovern’s essay “Mario Lanza: A Radical Reassessment” here. A much more detailed biography is offered in the excellent book by Armando Cesari. You might also be interested in the Mario Lanza Google Group, the members of which are also Mr.McGovern and Mr.Cesari.

Lanza had no artistic guidance during his Hollywood years, plus many recordings were made quickly, without an established opera conductor. Moreover, most Lanza collections, especially those named “Lanza Gold” or “The Best of Lanza”, or similar to that, are simple packs of various recordings, no matter if good or bad. Even the only purely operatic CD “Mario Lanza – Opera Arias and Duets” is a decidedly mixed offering. It contains also lesser recordings, such as the Celeste Aida from the 1952 radio show. Why not the excellent one from The Great Caruso, with Peter Herman Adler conducting? Amor ti vieta, Nessun dorma, O soave fanciulla – ditto. In a situation where many opera aficionados don’t take him as a serious singer, there should be at least a CD of his true best.

If you’d like to know what his greatest recordings are, search here, a song-by-song review of the most popular CDs can be found here.

This is my absolute Lanza favourite. Un di all'azzurro spazio from Andrea Chenier. If Mozart's compositions are a proof of God's existence, this recording of Lanza's is double so.

Here you have some of Lanza's film best. Thanks to DiPlacido71 and Tenor65 for sharing.

The first clip is Dio, mi potevi scagliar from Verdi's Otello, as shown in the film Serenade, 1956.

The following video is of Vesti la giubba from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. It's a clip from Lanza's last film, paradoxically named "For the First Time", 1959.

Here we have Lanza in his youthful best: La donna e mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto, from the film The Great Caruso, 1951. Peter Herman Adler is conducting the soundtrack. The woman looking at him from the backstage is the famous Jarmila Novotná, who plays a selfish diva named Maria Selka. Unfortunately, their duet didn't make it to the final version of the film.