I know, so so far behind on blogging. I will catch up. I promise. But since I left off on the Tucker Gala, and yesterday I got my oh-so-shady recording of it from my favorite oh-so-shady opera CD place which will remain un-named; just a few thoughts.
Obviously this recording was made by someone sitting at the back of the house. Such an interesting contrast between live, recorded amateur live, and recorded professionally and volume-compressed. Live, especially in the crap seat I was in all the way up and most of the forward to the side, sometimes results in things that are epic and loud not cutting through orchestra, or a singer facing you and sounding like they have a megaphone. Professionally recording results in too much volume compression where a single voice singing pianissimo, and a full orchestra and chorus screaming, are pretty much the same volume. A live recording, however, from somewhere in the house, I think is the most accurate account of a performance as you can hear which voices disappear into the orchestra, which ones cut like lazer beams (Meade), which ones surround the house (Blythe), which ones tear and bludgeon through (Zajick), and which ones, even at piano, are the loudest human voices on earth (Guleghina).
Angela Meade sounds great. Her chests sound scarier than in house, her tops are great. Yes they’re screamy, but remember, in this aria she’s supposed an angry Italian woman wearing a breast plate like some psycho klingon warrior princess. She takes all the high options and all the low options. At one point she’s growling lower than most mezzos will go. The trills are great, the runs are amazing, and she is LOUD. Screamy thin-soprano loud that cuts through orchestra loud. It’s pretty darned good. She sounds great in the Norma finale and rips out a really nice high D that was clearly aimed exactly away from me when I was in-house, because I barely heard it there and it is definitely knocked out of the park in the recording.
Stephanie Blythe confirms that she has the hugest sound ever that wraps around the house in spectacular fashion. Too bad I don’t know or like the aria.
The Nabucco tenor sounds better recorded than live in everything. Sounds amazing (as he did in house) in the verismo duet from Cavelleria Rusticana. La Zajick tears shit up though. Why anyone would laugh at her “Easter curse” is beyond me. Maybe they didn’t know she was about to foghorn and then chest the two most amazing notes of the night. Incredible!
Kauffman sounds great, as always. I’m starting to get really annoyed with his volume tricks though – we get it, you can sing quiet and loud and turn the volume knob up and down at will. Now stop and just sing, damnit! Singing to the extremely hot (she even sounds like she’s hot) Anita [---many letters---] in the Carmen finale, he finally stops thinking about singing and just sings. Having watched the La Scala video a zillion times and seeing him live in this at the Met, I would wager this might be better. Raw emotion bursts in every note. Great stuff.
And finally, to Guleghina. Sorry Radvanovsky, but you’ve been beat. You’ve been out-radvanovsky’d in fact. Guleghina sings Vissi D’arte even slower than you. She holds the crazy difficult notes, where most soprano’s are whelping out of key, longer than you. And while Radvanovsky has (her words, I agree) a Rolls Royce of a voice that she seemingly effortlessly drives, Guleghina overcomes her damaged, frayed, wobbly, loud, flawed, disgusting, voice, and sings almost the entire aria at an appropriate volume without wobble. Sure, the high B or whatever is in her usual mega voice, but it’s supposed to be. The next two, done in one insanely long breath, are perfect and pianissimo. The ending doesn’t go flat or sharp. So Radvanovsky, you’d better fight for more Met roles, because in 2011 your (amazing) Tosca just can’t stand up to Guleghina’s ridiculously fearless Nabuccos (high Eb!!) and this single aria. Better luck next time.
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