Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 4a Anna Netrebko

December 2, 2018 | 15 L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O Although he composed three operas, it is in his songs that Sergei Rachmaninoff ’s gifts as a composer for the voice found their true fulfillment. He was a supreme master of the romance , following such distinguished predecessors in that form as Glinka and Tchaikovsky. For his texts he preferred Russian Romantic poets, although in his later songs he found some attraction to contemporary texts. Affairs of the heart spoke vividly to him, and he was also unforgettably eloquent depicting the beauties of nature. A stupendous pianist, he created piano accompaniments demanding exceptional virtuosity. Among the most popular Rachmaninoff songs are two from Opus 21 (1902). Above the quietly rippling piano of “Siren ’ ” (“Lilacs”), the singer’s legato reveals that only in the lilacs themselves can her true happiness be found. Also from Opus 21 is “Zdes ’ horosho” (“How lovely it is here”). Here the composer has united voice and piano in a richly expressive flow of lyricism, as the singer rejoices in nature and in her solitude, feeling at one with both God’s presence and her dream of her beloved. Four years after Opus 21 came “U moego okna” (“Before my window”), part of Opus 26. Here sweetness – mixed with passion – in the vocal line perfectly embodies the enchantment the singer feels when breathing in the scent of cherry blossoms. By 1916 Rachmaninoff had become bolder in his harmonic colors, on display in the mesmerizingly atmospheric “Son” (“The Dream”). Still known best today for his orchestral showpieces, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov devoted a good deal of his energies to vocal music. Among Russian composers of his generation, none surpasses Rimsky-Korsakov in communicating the essence of Russia in all its expansiveness, as well as its darkness and mystery. Although his songs often ask a good deal of the singer in their sheer soulfulness, he was also capable of irrepressible exuberance. That quality combines with virtuosity (from the pianist as much as the singer) in the brief but exhilarating “Zvonche zharovonka pen ’ e” (“The lark sings louder”). In contrast is the passionate melancholy pervading both Pushkin’s poem “Redeet oblakov letuchaja grjada” (“The clouds begin to scatter”) and Rimsky-Korsakov’s surgingly dramatic setting of it. Richard Strauss came to song literature much earlier than opera (the second composition he produced was a Christmas song, written at age six). The bulk of his best-known songs were written pre-1900, and the greatest of these eminently suit a shining, “full lyric” soprano. For this recital, Anna Netrebko has chosen four Strauss songs requiring the ultimate in lyrical beauty and sincerity of expression. The composer’s youthful promise was already being fulfilled in the exquisite “Die Nacht” (“The night”) and the entrancing delicacy of “Ständchen” (“Serenade”). A little more than a decade later came the even more popular “Morgen” (“Tomorrow”), a serenely beautiful vision of a world in which two lovers will always be together. “Wiegenlied” (“Lullaby”) offers heartstopping beauty, while also presenting one of the ultimate tests of legato control in all of Strauss. The songs of Claude Debussy are the epitome of French mélodies in their absolute connection between music and text. Certainly they demand consummate vocal technique, but even the biggest vocal gestures never draw undue attention. The colors in Debussy songs emerge in the composer’s exquisitely sensitive response to the mood-setting of some of the greatest of all French poets, from Charles Baudelaire to Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé. The six songs of Ariettes oubliées (1885-87) are central to Debussy’s eminence as a composer of French art song. Each makes an intoxicating impression, particularly “Il pleure dans mon coeur,” with its elegant Verlaine lyrics. As the singer describes tears falling on his heart, the constant procession of 16th notes in the pianist’s right hand project an image not of a thundering barrage of rain, but of a steady patter. In his long life (he died in his mid- nineties) Gustave Charpentier composed only one work that has endured. The opera Louise (1900) premiered at Paris’s Opéra Comique and was memorable to Parisian audiences for vividly depicting the lives of the working class for perhaps the first time in French opera. The title character is a seamstress who falls in love with a bohemian poet, and leaves the suffocating atmosphere of her parents’ home to live with him on the outskirts of Paris. Act Three opens with “Depuis le jour,” an incomparably soaring expression of Louise’s happiness. Next to Eugene Onegin , the most celebrated of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky ’s 11 operas is The Queen of Spades (1890), the riveting story of Gherman, whose obsession with gambling leads to catastrophe for him and Lisa, the young woman he loves. She opens the opera’s second scene singing with Polina for their friends. This number – actually meant to be accompanied by the piano (with intermittent flute intervention) when performed in context – exudes youthful sweetness as soprano and mezzo-soprano describe a peaceful evening in the country. In Russian art-song literature, Tchaikovsky’s songs can be compared only to Rachmaninoff’s for their blend of sensitivity, intimacy, and lyrical fervor. One of the six romances of Opus 38, “Skazhi o chem v teni vetvej” (“Tell me, what in the shadows of branches”), is a passionate paean to the different ways the joys of love can be discovered – one can easily imagine Onegin ’s lovestruck heroine Tatiana singing it. “To bylo ranneju vesnoj” (“It was in early spring,” from Opus 38), “Nochi bezumnye” (“Sleepless nights,” from Opus 60), and above all, “Den li carit” (“Whether day dawns,” from Opus 47), simply overwhelm the listener as the singer is seemingly consumed by the power of love. The varied output of Frank Bridge , one of the boldest and most innovative British musicians of the early twentieth century, included more than 50 songs, many of which have long been cherished by grateful English-speaking recitalists. One of the most beloved of these songs is “Go not, happy day,” an enchanting Tennyson poem, enhanced by a deliciously rippling accompaniment and describing how delightful it will be when a maiden finally says “yes” to her beloved. Anna Netrebko in her Lyric debut as Mimì/ La bohème , 2012/13 season. DAN REST Program Notes By Roger Pines