{"id":814,"date":"2015-05-27T13:13:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T20:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/?p=814"},"modified":"2015-05-27T13:13:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T20:13:29","slug":"a-great-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/2015\/05\/a-great-artist.html","title":{"rendered":"A Great Artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dido\"<\/a>The first great opera artist I experienced live was Rise Stevens as Octavian in a 1946 performance of Der Rosenkavalier<\/em> by the touring Metropolitan Opera in Dallas. I had no idea at\u00a0 the age of nine that she was a great artist, but she certainly impressed me. Since then I have had lots of opportunities to hear many of those who have been called great–and over the past three decades to present many of them at Seattle Opera. Sadly, one never can hear everybody. I never attended a performance with Kirsten Flagstad or Lotte Lehmann who were still singing then, but I thought I had an aural and visual image of the great singers of the last\u00a0sixty years. This kind of hubris has received its comeuppance in a big way because of work that I am doing for a course I shall teach at Stanford University this summer.<\/p>\n

The course will discuss and analyze Les Troyens<\/em> and Die Meistersinger<\/em>, both of which will be presented\u00a0this summer and fall\u00a0by the San Francisco Opera. Recordings will illustrate whatever I have to say, and in preparing the Berlioz I checked out all the available recordings. I had never heard the live recording of\u00a0 Les Troyens<\/em> of February 22, 2003, from the Metropolitan Opera. A few minutes into the Carthage section I suddenly realized both what I had missed and understood everything friends of mine have often said to me.<\/p>\n

Practically from the first words of –“Nous avons vu finir,” certainly from her first real statement: “Chers Tyriens,” I realized that in Lorraine Hunt Lieberson I was hearing something amazing. As the\u00a0recording went on I couldn’t believe the consistent intensity, the variety of vocal approaches, the sensitivity to the meaning of every word, the evenness in sound throughout the large range of the part of Dido, the flawless French diction, in fact everything. The\u00a0 many big moments of Dido had a freshness to them that was remarkable–especially a breathtaking love duet with Ben Heppner at his best and an “Adieu, fiere cite” that understated the tragedy, thereby making her feelings all the more real–but what mattered most was that I was not hearing someone singing Dido, I was hearing her living the Carthaginian queen. I can only say that listening to this recording hit me similarly to my first exposure to Maria Callas, Leonie Rysanek, or Birgit Nilsson, just to name three great artists of the recent past.<\/p>\n

I remembered all the things I had heard about her and was mystified that I had not experienced her extraordinary art. Looking up her career I found that she had sung in only one other production at the Metropolitan and only four performances of Les Troyens<\/em>, this recording being the last. She sang at the Santa Fe Opera, once at San Francisco Opera and the New York City Opera, often in Europe, and of course she was famed for early music and recitals. Baroque, classical, and contemporary vocal music were her areas of\u00a0most frequent\u00a0work. I just missed her. Had she not died at the age of 52, she would have sung, I am sure, a lot more, and had I ever\u00a0experienced her onstage, I would have turned over heaven and earth to bring her to Seattle Opera.<\/p>\n

For those who don’t know her artistry I strongly recommend hearing her Bach and Handel recordings, plus this Troyens<\/em> recording. Her work with Peter Sellars must have been astonishing. I know that she also worked extensively with director Stephen Wadsworth and scores of great conductors. She performed many rarely given baroque works, lots of contemporary operas but also such a familiar work as Carmen<\/em>. Her recital and concert work must have been extraordinary; her performance of her husband’s Neruda Songs with James Levine and the Boston Symphony in 1999 unforgettable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first great opera artist I experienced live was Rise Stevens as Octavian in a 1946 performance of Der Rosenkavalier by the touring Metropolitan Opera in Dallas. I had no idea at\u00a0 the age of nine that she was a great artist, but she certainly impressed me. Since then I have had lots of opportunities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}