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Anna Netrebko's CD "Souvenirs" of restless hearts; Sings Verdi's "La Traviata" at SFO in June
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Gypsies and poetry meet heroes in uniform and men of the world
Anna Netrebko's Souvenirs, the Russian soprano's romantic fantasy CD, takes the listener into a dream world. She introduces classic romantic characters—free spirited women of humble origins who fall in love with heroes. Usually heroic world traveling men like army or naval officers but there’s a Bohemian poet or two in there. One actually gets the girl. What ties these souls together? A gypsy heart.
Note Anna will perform at SFO this June as Violetta the courtesan in Verdi’s La Traviata, the travesty. She gives up her young beloved and dies of a broken heart (in the form of consumption). It’s the one with the song where she beseeches the somewhat bewildered gentleman, love me, love me, as I love you. His father convinced her to think better of it. Remember the movie Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts, the diamond in the rough/prostitute, recognizes something on stage and cries in her box seat.
Nevertheless Chris Mullins of Opera Today says Anna's voice is too rich and full for some of the melodies of Souvenirs. The super star's voice has developed so much she should really let it rip in challenging pieces more suitable to her strong voice.
I imagine she will sing the Hell out of Violetta in June, live at SFO. Give us those sweeping Verdi arias?
Tim Ashley of the Guardian says Mein Vogele, Sleep Well, Little Bird, shows what made her Traviata at Covent Garden so memorable last year. He emphasizes how much more exciting she is live.
I do agree with Mullins that singing in her native language she's more likely to bring out the best. She sings in ten languages on this world tour of a CD, Souvenirs, even Yiddish.
Meanwhile. Ashley says the Yiddish song is the best. He says elsewhere she overdoes the sex bomb routine a bit. However I'm not sure what he means as these romantic songs with their poetic stories capture the imagination. Apparently Ashley's British imagination too. If there is sex bomb written between the lines of poetry of the late 1800s or early 1900s I have yet to read it. The CD includes several lullabies, they are haunting and entrancing if not soothing.
So after 17 souvenirs of love expressed through poetry, gypsies, cabaret and courtesanship; abandonment by parents, abandonment of parents and even of a husband in favor of the beloved--men of the world or in uniform, only to be abandoned in turn for military service or a life of adventure . . . Anna Netrebko's journey of the heart finally settles down. In the form of life in London after world travels . . . retaining joie de vivre and sealed with a kiss. It all ends with song number 18, Il Bacio.
In contrast. Here she sings the only contemporary song, an Andrew Lloyd Webber requiem from 1985 after he lost his father. It's about orphans of Cambodia so he's identifying with the abandonment and loss. It goes from a church organ to a reverence with a full choir sound ending in flute like high notes of angels.
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Nevertheless let's call Il Bacio, The Kiss a happy ending. So I’ll dedicate this write-up to airline pilot Kent Krizman. He’s my hero and he fixed my bicycle. Kent returns to the skies at the end of this month and just celebrated his 49th birthday, which makes him my age chronologically.
The first song I noticed on Souvenirs though is with Elina Garanca, who sings Hoffman’s Barcarolle with Anna. Elina says the mezzo and soprano sound so similar in tone that it’s difficult to tell who sings what. Anna’s rich and elegant voice, full of poetry and sentiment if not out and out seduction, takes the listener into a dream world indeed.
This is just one example, where the exotic, elegant and dark haired Russian soprano sings with fair haired Latvian Elina. Elina performs in the pants role of the benevolent muse Nicklausse to Anna’s Venetian courtesan Giulietta. It’s one of the tales the lovelorn poet Hoffman tells as he becomes disillusioned with the woman of his dreams; the muse is trying to save Hoffman’s creative soul from the courtesan. Introducing Barcarolle, Anna’s voice coach Elena Motusovskaya says many of the songs on the CD Souvenirs were written for a mezzo so Anna must sing with a more mild and dark tone; others in a high position and a lighter tone.
Anna says the conductor Villaume got her to sing Barcarolle with a spasm of pleasure as she describes in the three minute promo DVD; it’s a tremor of pleasure as printed in the particularly beautiful picture book the CD comes with. How does one say this in Russian?
In any event. Anna is one singer who can play the role of gypsy; cabaret performer; masked housemaid seducing a handsome young soldier into a private tete a tete at a Parisian Opera ball; Parisian dressmaker in love with a Bohemian poet; patient and long suffering abandoned lover of military heroes . . . or a Norwegian adventurer Peer Gynt. She sings that one in Norwegian.
She also sings, Enslaved by the Rose . . .
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Reminder, if you like Russian art, Eugene Onegin plays at the Vogue Theater in San Francisco’s Laurel Heights on Sunday morning at 10:30 AM. It’s the Bolshoi Theater performing at the Paris Opera. French bulldogs love the Paris Opera, here’s the writer with Frenchie Bistro inside the Vogue SF this week.
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About Each Piece on Souvenirs
So. Anna starts as a gypsy princess, the gypsy theme recurring throughout the CD in various incantations. She sings with an exoticism and charm as a cabaret singer engaged to a prince. It’s haunting, a sound that characterizes many of the songs to come after Heia in den Bergen Die Csardasfurstin. [Youtube.com link]
Yet as I noted above with the video clip, she goes into a reverent tone in a religious piece, Pie Jesu. It’s the only contemporary song as most come from the late 1800s and a few from the early 1900s. It’s the requiem by Andrew Lloyd Webber from 1985 when his father died; it’s about the plight of orphans in Cambodia. Anna sings with a boy treble from England, Andrew Swait.
Yet before this she has a seductive duet from Der Opernball. She’s a housemaid who disguises herself as a masked lady to attend a glamorous Parisian opera ball. There she sings this song as she seduces a naval officer into a private room for a tete a tete.
Anna sings in ten languages on this CD of 18 songs. She says her signature song is the one of bittersweet longing. It’s from the operetta Giudetta. Again, a military officer is the object of her affection. The beautiful heroine abandons her husband to be with an army captain, Octavio, only to have the captain abandon her for his army career. She becomes a nightclub performer in North Africa. Here she sings Franz Lehar's Meine Lippen . . .
In Charpentier’s Louise, she’s a Parisian dressmaker in love with a Bohemian poet. Scandalizing her parents, she abandons them too and the aria she sings is of her indescribable happiness.
Yet not all of Anna’s portrayals are of courtesans, gypsies and women who abandon their families for officers.
Cacilie, by Strauss, was written and given to the bride to be on the day before her wedding. It’s from a poet’s own tribute to his own wife. An ecstatic piece foretelling of the long union between a phlegmatic Strauss and his fiery wife Ahna, according to the notes.
Many songs on the CD come from poems. If they do not originate in poems, they may be about poets, such as Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman; or one of the two Rimsky-Korsakov songs, Not the Wind, Blowing from the Heights. This one is about the effect on the poet’s body likened to the effect of his beloved on his soul. It’s from a text by a relative of Leo Tolstoy. The notes on these two songs from Anna’s native repertoire read like poetry too. The songs must sound light and transparent, like good perfume . . . beautiful but simple . . .
Like the songs inspired by poetry, some of the songs come from operettas and one from the Paris Opera-Comique . . . Qu’une Enfant . . . about a naïve young man Fortunio who is used by Jacqueline as a decoy, only to declare his own love for her and get rejected.
The Norwegian piece sounds haunting though, one of several lullabies on the CD. It was written for Ibsen’s play in 1876 where Peer Gynt abandons the long suffering love Solveig for his life of adventure.
Yet the Dvorak song is sung in Czech not German; the Prague orchestra loved Anna singing in their native language she says. The Prague orchestra sounds lively, fresh, committed and energetic. Again, the gypsy theme and from poetry. Sweet and sentimental, from Songs My Mother Taught Me (Gypsy Melodies).
Lovely harp and flute in the Strauss lullaby that follows, set to a poem and dedicated to a woman friend. Wiegenlied, recorded in one take by Anna.
Enslaved by the Rose sounds more exotic and Eastern, entrancing and seductive like coaxing the cobra from the basket. Dedicated to the wife of a friend and fellow composer.
Next a Yiddish lullaby with a chorus of monks holding a monotone in the background. Sad and tender, Sleep Well My Little Bird. After this sad lullaby, it’s Webber’s song which seems to identify with abandonment by parents because of their death. There’s a church organ eventully leading to flute like high notes to make for an angelic end.
Similarly a 17 year old composer’s song from Venezuela sounds pensive or even menacing and foreboding with it’s strings. Reynaldo Hahn’s L’Enamouree, The Loved One.
Following the Latin turn, Argentinian La Rosa, influenced by folk music.
Becoming more fiery, La Tempranico. The headstrong girl. Very Spanish, very Carmen. Indeed about a gypsy who falls in love with a nobleman but who realizes their love is impossible. There’s a dance involved, a triple time song for La Tarantula, performed as a pants role, Grabie.
For the big money coloratura champagne finish, a waltzing Il Bacio, The Kiss. By an Italian composer in London, Luigi Arditi. Full of high spirits and a rich sound; it’s fun. Luigi had toured the world before settling down in London in his thirties.
For more info: www.SFOpera.com, www.AnnaNetrebko.com, www.ElinaGaranca.com, www.beczala.com, www.emmanuelvillaume.com, www.deutschegrammophon.com/netrebko-souvenirs, www.VogueSF.com
Photos: Esther Haase
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