Exits in a couple of weeks (October 19 to be exact) the new album by one of the most popular contemporary artists, admired and criticized by some purists as is Natalie Dessay. The disc, from the classic title caption of "Mad Scenes", in reality it does not contain anything new that the fans Dessay's not already possess, because it assembles the scenes of "madness" that the French soprano has recorded throughout his career twenty years. Some would say so purely commercial transaction, and actually have reason to believe it. But when a disc, which it is manufactured or specially recorded compilation contains material of a certain artistic interest, from our point of view is still worthy of attention, however, a greater attention than fresh produce in the recording studio but stale content Music. That said, the disc has a fairly diverse musical excursion that starts Italian opera ideally be filtered through the French taste (Lucie), reviews the grand opera, and operetta, to close the circle by definition of the romantic melodrama Lucia (Italian version), which must be, wants to be the highlight of the disc.
The two versions of Lucia, as well as self-satisfaction of the diva, is also the functional representation of the artistic career of this singer and offer interesting points of comparison rather than on purely musical level on the interpretation . The French version of this scene in fact differs little from the Italian (it is shorter and has the cabaletta transposed above) but the sensitivity with which Dessay deals with the two pages is very different. If the live Dessay Today's offers a Lucia - in Italian - and revolutionary "veristeggiante" (with the indignation of many, and the appreciation of many others), its French Lucie appeared more moderate and introspective, as if instead of looking at the character through Puccini looking through the Massenet. In the studio, this impression seems to subvert. The French version has a little more secure than vocalization Italian, but it has a richness of color and variety of phrases that denote a more interpretive work is related to the word and the psychology of the character is on a strictly technical. Someone will notice more of a "flaw" (not exactly precise coloratura, muted notes and spinning ad hoc treble the most dangerous etc..) but not a mortal sin, at least in our opinion, if an artist to come to terms with the "wrinkles" of his own voice even if he is an artist worthy of the name will be pushed to its limits by a more research of the color that, on balance, is the real discriminant of an interpretation; happened with Callas, Gencer, Scotto, the Sills, which we have forgiven all of a purely vocalist, is happening now with Dessay.
The long opening recitative, though well sung, has a few ideas to make a miracle, but in reality, appears to be functional to an escalation of tension will be resolved only with the E flat in the last final. Ardon incense in fact is already far more exciting, colored lights and shadows, and a burning passion but almost underground. Well as the apt choice to give up the flute at the cadence, the feeling is that Lucy, alone with his visions, wanders through the corridors of the castle, which echoed to his ravings. The central part leading to the famous cry cabaletta Instead, in place of a sung note that has caused so much scandal among philologists. It is of course the cry that Berco was heard at the Met, but it's a terrifying note unvoiced, less scenic, but definitely in effect outside in the dramatic plunge of the most chilling sound in a cacophonous dysphonia so unconventional. Spread of bitter tears there now appears as a direct result of this latent fear, and thus takes on a gloomy atmosphere and schizophrenic completely new, with changes of tempo and character even more pronounced. The Dessay's Lucia is a young wife who wallows in a bloodbath in the balance between consciousness and madness, so it is something strangely near the Devereux all'Elisabetta than to Bellini's Amina (or should I say close to Stuart, as in the recital Original Italian arias in which it appears that our scene unexpectedly Dessay gives a convincing interpretation and "humanizing" the character the ill-fated queen). A fascinating read that brings the two worlds Donizetti Sills as only he could possibly do, with different means and sensitivity.
A comparison of such tragic grandeur of the scene to be a bit disappointed I Puritani '. Point first because it is more uncomfortable with Dessay Bellini cantabile, uncomfortably Central and, above all, fluid and tied up, because the second point, perhaps having completed less than the character, not able to get out from the stereotype of a young girl betrayed and hurt that, for the love , loses his mind. The jewel in the Beloved becomes the cabaletta Vien, usually a bit '"throwaway" even by large singers who use it primarily as a piece of skill. Well, the mouth piece to Dessay, who still plays with the times and colors rather than with the coloratura, it becomes a real "love song" and acquires a dignity of expression that many interpreters, concentrated on the stairs and the triplets, relegated to the background . Same thing could be done to the air from Dinorah, this became a real workhorse of coloratura sopranos, who perform almost as an exercise for the concert. Dessay the other hand, in addition to reopen a beautiful cantabile middle usually omitted, impresses with its versatility rhythm (feel like playing with the pause) and coloristic virtuosity rather than the exterior, extraordinary here as well because the air is engraved in its heyday when the voice was still capable of an astonishing and unexpected A flat (yes, I said the flat!) overload. Through a shimmering light of the notes issued seems really Dinorah is playing with his shadow as he did Peter Pan, he lost in his world of carefree childhood. And so even the "old way" Mayerbeer able to approach the ideal of modern verve unleashed Bernstein's Candide, in an ideal bridge built around the Leibnizian philosophy of "living in the best of all possible worlds." Little to say about this piece, just one of the flagships of the French soprano. And the more that the voice capacity Dessay is memorable for the strictly actor, who also irrepressibly only audio through a spontaneous and surreal comedy that manages to beat many of the interpretations of history that they know they built. Dessay is where the charge is cocky, conceited, exaggerated, sings, talks, cries, screams like a caricature of an airhead diva, like a below Manon amphetamines, as well as proving a great singer-bred character, an expert in the use of voice not only in the sense of bel canto, but also theater. In addition to demonstrating that un'autoironia, let's face it, it is often foreign to many of his colleagues.
But the real miracle done with a page usually underestimated. Thomas's Hamlet is after all a work of craft and often very lengthy, the only page that really famous is, of course, the madness of Ophelia, which has become the workhorse of the time sopranos light facing the French repertoire. Already Callas, in her Mad Scenes of 50 years ago, had tried to restore dignity to this piece through a reading of less banal and blooms better care of the parties in accent singable. Callas At the time, however, was still missing the French taste, as well as the confidence of her character with a stranger who inevitably turns out to be more illegitimate son of Lucia that delivery of the pen of Shakespeare. A goal certainly huge for its time (and the same revolutionary) passed the reading breathtaking Dessay, who here can make the highest level in a directory where it is fully at ease. Open wide at the time gives a character suspended and dream at the same time allows the voice of Dessay to work on the smaller details of the expression as none had ever done in the past on this air. Just listen especially the airy and the initial stage of the "song", sad and already saturated with death as was the song of the willow for Desdemona in a hypothetical, but even so, the parallel between the two Shakespearean heroines. Amid the sudden explosions of virtuosity and tack sharp, almost tackled expressionistic, sometimes lacerating in their violence and now fully functional floor drama. But if Lucy became insane murderer, Desdemona became a victim of the folly of others, Ophelia is a victim and perpetrator of herself, the archetypal suicide madness that is perpetuated through a form of ritual self-injury that, beyond the theatrical metaphor, it is still relevant if considered on a purely psychological. And the cry of "I die for you" Ophelia sacrifices his soul in an irrational but dramatically conscious sacrifice that Dessay expresses in a profound and moving through an interpretation of modernity felt overwhelming.
Zizzu
Natalie Dessay - Mad Scenes: Scenes of madness
(Virgin Classics - 2009)
DONIZETTI: Lucie de Lammermoor (Lucia)
BELLINI: I Puritani (Elvira )
THOMAS: Hamlet (Ophelia)
BERNSTEIN: Candide (Cunegonde)
MEYERBEER: Forgiveness Ploërmel (Dinorah)
DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor (Lucia)
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