Singers and a Performer

Confession—the news is so bad I’ve turned to music to get me through the day. So I devote half an hour to reading about North Korea, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan—oh, and let’s not forget those politicians pondering the seriously hard question of whether any lunatic (literally) should be able to buy a gun—and then I take a walk. Or rather, it’s “then we take a walk.” This week, Ralph Vaughan Williams joined me, and excellent company he was. He told me, which I didn’t know, that he had volunteered for World War I when he was 41—well past the age when he was compelled to. And he had served time as an ambulance carrier in the fields. Then he came home and saw the whole thing happening all over again, fifteen years later. He didn’t go, of course, to the Second World War, but he wrote a bitter, very dissonant symphony—completely unlike his usual stuff—about it. Years later, he said, “I don’t know if I like it, but I meant it.”

Second confession—Vaughan Williams died in 1958.

Or not. The music is going strong, there is a Vaughan Williams Society promoting his work, and if his words were resonating in my mind, on the morning trot, well—is he really dead? And so to the greater glory of Vaughan Williams, I wrote a post about him, and put it in a new blog, Words on Musick. (Sorry for the affectation—that “musick” business—but somebody had already got to “music”). The next day I got into Cecilia Bartoli singing all those wonderful arias written for castrati—the ones only a manic singer on cocaine can sing. They’re fun, they’re (mostly) more a romp than music, but who cares? There’s a place for Mozart, a place for Broschi.

Right, so that lead me into the world of the soprano, and I wasted an hour which I cheerfully have watching a BBC documentary on castrati—the singers who had parts removed to preserve their voices. And I discovered two or three remarkable singers. There’s Radu Marian, a guy from Moldavia who for medical reasons never entered puberty (though I noted today that he sports a mustache—don’t know what that’s about….) Anyway, Radu has a clean, high voice—fully soprano, very pure, and yes, I mean it when I say high. He could break glass.

Another singer, as well, Michael Maniaci, who like Radu never entered puberty—they’re both astonishing singers. Right, so it felt that the world needed to hear me weigh in on this, so I wrote about that.

It’s unfortunate, how easily just doing something three days in a row becomes a habit. What to write about today?

Well, there is the intemperance of commentary on YouTube; has anyone noticed it besides me? Or is it that musicians—I’m skating quite close to the truth, here, just to mix a metaphor—are an irritable, irascible bunch? Anyway, the YouTubians / YouTubists / YouTubers / nothing-satisfies-the computer-these-days are going at each other with sabers over the question of Simone Kermes. Here is one of the more temperate remarks—I fear to introduce the more incendiary to the Gentle Readers of this blog.

Whatever she's taken, I think I want some too! She has such a gorgeous voice but the coloratura just isn't accurate at ALL from the word go although she has way better technique than Bartoli (it's hard to do it properly!) All this drunk-auntie-at-a-wedding dancing, what is all that about? It is so vulgar I actually sort of love it. Quite frankly the best Rodelinda in the world (IMO) doesn't need to "prove" she can sing this (or not). 8/10 for singing, 10/10 for chutzpah!

This from the hugely talented and universally acclaimed…La Prima Ragazza.

I think you get my point. One of the reasons nobody listens to classical music much is that regular people have been snobbed out of it. Yeah, in the movies, classical music is OK. But actually go to a concert, with all the formality, the protocol, the anxiety of when you’re supposed to clap…. And what if you don’t like the music?

Well, Kermes gets called by Mozart200657 “The Operatic Lady Gaga,” so I decided to check her out. And here she is, romping her way through Come Nave in mezzo all’onde.

Well,as always, I’m mixed about it all. I think Ian Bostridge said it best: pop music is now the mainstream; if you really want to be counterculture, listen to Mozart. And isn’t it hypocritical to keep viewing popular music as somehow the underdog?

And why does Simone Kermes have to emulate Lady Gaga? Why does she have to sell herself—isn’t the voice and the music enough?

That said, I’m not so sure that I can comfortably pan her. If she wants to romp around on-stage, why not? Yes, it’s all a bit campy, it may also distract from the aria, but it’s another point of view, it’s something to see. My only problem with it is that Kermes will never out-gaga Gaga.

You judge—here she is:

OK—so it’s not the heaviest music in the world. What happens when she sings something slow, something expressionistic? Thanks to YouTube, it’s no trouble to get her singing Porpora’s Alto giove, an absolutely gorgeous aria made famous by the film Farinelli.

Well,what do I know about singing? I liked it, I liked the timbre of the voice, the way it felt covered, inward.  But Snutith called called it the worst rendition he’d ever heard and wonders—why does she record so much? She must have the right connections, he concludes.

Well, I looked up the New York Times review of a recent performance, and guess what? It was generally favorable. Oh, and Opera News called her “the queen of Baroque.” And she gets a rave from the Sunday Times, as you can see in the clip below.

Hey just a sec, that was Ombra mai fu? Right, I checked on it. And it turns out—there are three versions of Ombra mai fu: one by Francesco Cavalli; the second by Bonocini, living in London at the same time as Handel, and his rival; and Handel’s, which bears a strong resemblance.