In these live recording of Donizetti, Wagner and Brahms, we travel musically between the 1830s to the 1880s – half a century – from the age of bel canto, through the high romantic and into the music of the future. Donizetti’s high flying, thrilling bel canto opera takes us through the conflicts and rivalries of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, as seen through the full-blown Germanic intensity of Friedrich Schiller’s high drama, complete with the historically specious but brilliantly impressive Scottish meeting of the two queens that has subsequently almost achieved historical validity.
This vocally ravishing 2009 performance of Maria Stuarda, filmed at the glittering La Fenice Theatre in Venice, moves at an exciting pace through the various intrigues of the plot, providing those great operatic moments and confrontations created to give the stars plenty of chances to shine. And shine they all do here.
The action is staged on a raked stage and maze-like set of hedged boxes and costumed somewhere between Tosca and The Godfather. Never mind, from the opening tourist vistas of Venice through to the authentic theatre interior, this is a thrilling, genuine night at the opera. This is a Ferrero Rocher interpretation.
We now move to a confection of a darker but no less rich quality. The time was when chunks of Wagner regularly featured in orchestral concerts. Not so nowadays. The magician of Bayreuth has been elbowed out by Mahler and Bruckner. But fear not. Lorin Maazel’s The Ring Without Words is by no means an Walt Disney-style rhapsody of Wagnerian kitsch. Here we have a sensible anthology of moments of true glory from one of the world’s masterpieces. You may never hear more beautiful orchestral playing. The musical direction is ravishing, dramatic and tasteful, with full weight given where called for. The closing stages are moving in the extreme. This must recruit many more to Wagner. The filming is beautiful, with plenty of interesting featured instrumental moments.
The Bavarian players give full, rich and creamy renderings of Brahms two middle symphonies and the surround sound is splendid. These performances have a certain Elgarian quality to them. It’s no accident that Elgar gained his first big recognition in Germany. Symphony 3 is strongly Elgarian, I think. Satisfying though these are, I still found myself longing for Bruno Walter during the second and for Karl Bohm during the third, but many nowadays declare themselves unable to listen to such “old” recording. They are mistaken. While I’m on about it, for the first symphony, you can’t beat Carlos Kleiber.
