The moderate soprano: Audrey Mildmay

Audrey Mildmay. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

John: I ask on behalf of the audience. . .Mozart. Is he any good?

The professionals look amused to each other, but John is ahead of them.

And before you say that's stupid, oh look, I know he's a genius. . .But it's a different matter, isn't it? Genius. It's a different thing. Because, frankly, Goethe's a genius, but I've never read Faust, have you? I can't get through it. And Dante's a genius but I've never read — the Quartos.

Ebert: Cantos.

John: Exactly.

Ebert: That make up the Divine Comedy.

John: Nor wanted to.

John is shaking his head.

I know everyone says that genius sees things other people don't. But geniuses aren't always so bloody brilliant at seeing what other people do. . .What I'm saying: Mozart may be great, but is he any good? That's my question. Because it's by no means the same thing.

—David Hare, The Moderate Soprano, Scene 12

This is one of many wonderful exchanges in Hare's play, but it's not quite true to life. John Christie, who together with his wife, Audrey Mildmay, founded the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, was not as unfamiliar with nor as skeptical of Mozart as Hare makes him appear. While it's true that Christie's greatest operatic passion was for Wagner, he also attended Mozart operas at festivals in Munich and Salzburg. And in the Organ Room at his family's country estate, Glyndebourne, he brought in professional and amateur singers to perform scenes from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Harem). [1]

In the Christmastime 1930 performance of scenes from Die Entführung the soprano who sang the part of Blonde was Audrey Mildmay. [2] She had been born in Sussex—in Herstmonceux, just 10 miles east of Glyndebourne—but had grown up in Canada, returning to England in her mid-20s for vocal studies. Ultimately she joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company, which performed operas in English or English translation, and which gave an annual season in London and spent the rest of the year touring throughout the British Isles.

On first hearing Audrey, John was instantly smitten. After a proverbial whirlwind courtship the couple married in early June 1931, just five months after they met. The groom was 48, and the bride was 30; it was the first and only marriage for both. It was apparently Audrey who convinced John to alter his plans for an expansion of the Organ Room into the construction of a full-fledged 300-seat theater, where the Glyndebourne Festival was staged beginning in 1934 and continuing (with a hiatus during World War II) to the present.

In Hare's play it is conductor Fritz Busch, director Carl Ebert, and manager Rudolph Bing, who, with support from Audrey, persuade John to shift the plans for his theater from Wagner to Mozart just eight weeks before the opening of the Festival (that is, around the beginning of April 1934). In fact, with John's encouragement Audrey had begun studying the roles of Susanna (in Le Nozze di Figaro) and Zerlina (in Don Giovanni) in the fall of 1932. She travelled to Vienna to learn the roles in Italian with vocal teacher Jani Strasser (while Zerlina had been in her repertory with Carl Rosa, she had performed it in English). So apparently Mozart operas, in Italian, were being planned for the Festival quite early on.

Audrey Mildmay in costume as Susanna in Act IV of Figaro (?), 1939. Photo: National Portrait Gallery.

As late as November 1933, though, John was still hoping to inaugurate the theater with a performance of Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second opera in Wagner's Ring Cycle. But two months later, at the end of January 1934, it was announced that the first season of the Festival would involve 6 performances each of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. In Glyndebourne: A History of the Festival Opera, Spike Hughes writes that "John Christie's decision to present an all-Mozart festival instead of the mixed Wagner-Mozart affair he had originally planned was the satisfactory result of some concentrated pressure recently exercised on him by Audrey Mildmay and [scenic designer] Hamish Wilson," although it's also implied that Busch had a role. [3] Ebert and his protége Bing seem to have been hired after the repertoire had been chosen.

One of many affecting moments in Hare's play comes later in Scene 12. John has resigned himself to the lack of Wagner in Glyndebourne's first season, but he insists that for the Mozart operas that are now programmed his wife must be cast without auditioning. Audrey herself demurs. As she explains,

Audrey: These men are artists, John. . .They have to do it in a way which has integrity. They can't employ the chatelaine for no other reason but that she's married to the man who owns the chateau. . .the role isn't mine by right. It can't be. I have to prove my suitability like any other singer. Anything else would be unethical.

This moment is grounded in historical fact. Audrey was asked to audition, which she did on February 21. We can question how much freedom Busch, Ebert and Bing felt they had to form any negative judgments about the wife of their host and employer, but Busch's notes from the audition seem genuine: "a delightful voice, well-trained and full of artistry. Italian good. Strongly recommended. Properly used, her talent would have success in Dresden and Berlin."

Audrey Mildmay in costume as Susanna in Act II of Figaro, 1939. Photo: National Portrait Gallery.

Fortunately three of the early Glyndebourne Mozart productions were recorded, so we can hear for ourselves something of what Audrey Mildmay sounded like. The Glyndebourne recordings were the first (nearly) complete recordings of Mozart's operas in Italian, and so are landmarks of recorded music. These versions are of far more than historical interest, though: they capture vivid renditions of the operas. Few allowances need to be made for the age of the recordings, as you can hear for yourself in "Canzonetta sull'aria":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SntgHGCxXkI

The singers are Aulikki Rautawaara (Countess Almaviva) and Audrey Mildmay (Susanna). The Countess dictates a love note, ostensibly from Susanna to the Count: "'A song on the breeze: A gentle zephyr / This evening will sigh / Beneath the pines in the grove.' The rest he'll understand." Susanna agrees: "Certainly, the rest he'll understand." The Countess intends to dress as Susanna and meet the Count in the garden; in the darkness and with the disguises, though, the plan begins to go awry. . .

Aulikki Rautawaara (Countess Almaviva) and Audrey Mildmay (Susanna) performing "Canzonetta sull'aria." Photo: Glyndebourne.com

I don't fault Hare for not cleaving strictly to the historical truth. Plays must work dramatically, and I can attest that The Moderate Soprano is very effective in the theater. There is one theatrically effective moment, though, that I wish had been staged differently. The final scene of the play (I don't think this is spoiling anything, but if you don't want to know, stop reading here) is the opening night of Figaro on 28 May 1934:

. . .Fritz Busch, wearing tails, walks out in front of the curtain. . .There is an expectant moment. Busch raises his arms, and on the beat, the orchestra is heard to begin Mozart's overture for The Marriage of Figaro. . .The music grows louder and louder till it fills the theatre, sublime.

The overture to Figaro is rousing, and reliably brings the audience to its feet. But I think a more moving finale would be Audrey Mildmay's rendition of Susanna's aria "Deh vieni non tardar" from Act IV—a more fitting tribute to the "moderate soprano":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfyd8jzYLg

The words: "At last comes the moment when, without reserve, I can rejoice in my lover's arms: timid scruples, leave my heart, and do not trouble my delight. Oh! I feel this place, the earth and the sky, are responding to love's fire; the night conceals my secret joy. Come, my love, do not delay: love's joy awaits you. The sky is dark and all is hushed. Here the brook murmurs; the breeze plays, whose sighs soothe my beating heart; the flowers smile and the grass is cool; everything invites us to love. Come my beloved, amid these sheltering trees, and I will crown you with roses."

Audrey appeared as Susanna in Figaro in five of the first six seasons of the Glyndebourne Festival. During the war the Festival went on hiatus, and with the Christie children Audrey went to Canada. Her last professional performance took place there in 1943; conductor Sir Thomas Beecham wired John back in England that "Audrey as Susanna has scored a brilliant and special success. . ." But after the war Audrey suffered increasingly ill health and increasingly desperate medical interventions. She died in 1953 without ever performing again in a fully-staged opera. [4]

John: I remember saying to Audrey. . .'The best fun is when you're starting out. That's the best bit.' Of course, you don't know it at the time.

Rudi: No.

John: That's the sad thing.

Rudi: Yes.

John: You're not really aware.

Rudi: No.

John: Not really.

They both stare ahead, not moving.

If only someone could tell you, eh? Wouldn't that be grand?

Rudi: Yes. 

John: If there were someone to tell you.

Rudi: Yes.

John: 'This is the best bit.'

Further reading:

• Glyndebourne
• The first Glyndebourne Mozart recordings

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1. The information in this post is largely taken from two books on Glyndebourne that don't always agree, and from the official Glyndebourne website (glyndebourne.com). The books are:
   —Spike Hughes, Glyndebourne: A History of the Festival Opera Founded in 1934 by Audrey and John Christie, New edition, David & Charles, 1981 (original edition Methuen 1965).
   —John Joliffe, Glyndebourne: An Operatic Miracle, John Murray, 1999
2. Hughes reports this as Act I, which is doubtful as there are no arias for Blonde in Act I. It is far more likely to have been Act II.
3. Hughes, pp. 41-42.
4. Quoted in Julia Aries, "Glyndebourne's unsung heroine," glyndebourne.com

Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne. Photo: Bill Hunter (thestage.co.uk)

Audrey: I nearly fainted when I read what we're charging.

John: They have to respect us. They have to show us respect.

Rudi: He's right.

Audrey: And they do that, do they, by emptying their wallets?

Rudi: What better way?

Audrey: . . .No one's ever charged this much for music. It's unheard of.

John: . . .What have we been doing these last months? I'll tell you. We've been working harder than any of us have ever worked in our lives. We've been putting in a colossal effort. Now it's time for the audience to put in some effort as well. They must go to a London terminal at 2.30, they must give up their whole day to getting to an obscure part of Sussex, they must dress properly, they must spend the morning polishing their shoes and starching their dress shirts and searching out their cufflinks, and trying to tie a proper bow tie, a bow tie which will still have dignity at bedtime, they must for once in their lives take time to dress, and if it's an effort so what? So what? Wasn't starting Glyndebourne an effort?

Audrey: Jack, they just want a night out.

John: No! No! And if that's what they want, they're not getting it. . .Art can't be the sideshow. It mustn't be. I'm not having business people spending all day in their offices, talking on telephones, fiddling with stationery—whatever they do—and then in the evening saying, 'I'll pop back, pick up my wife and we'll take in a show.' No, I won't allow it! Not here! Not at Glyndebourne! Why? Because as far as I'm concerned, it's time someone told them in ringing tones: 'Gentlemen, your lives are the sideshow. Opera's the thing.' And if it takes a whole day and wipes out their savings, then so much the better. Because it matters! It matters, dammit. We're talking about the sublime.

—David Hare, Moderate Soprano, Scene 18

In Hare's play John is John Christie, owner of a 500-year-old English country estate on which he has built an opera house; Audrey is soprano Audrey Mildmay, his wife; Rudi is Rudolph Bing, a refugee from Nazi Germany and the newly hired general manager of what is about to become the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Not much has changed at Glyndebourne since 1934, when this imagined conversation among real people takes place. Tickets are still very expensive and very hard to come by. Attending still requires most of a day; the shuttle to Glyndebourne picks up passengers at the nearby Lewes Rail Station around 1:45 pm and returns them around nine hours later. (The opera starts in the late afternoon, but this span allows time for a leisurely pre-performance lunch in the estate gardens and a 90-minute intermission for dinner.) And audience members are still requested to dress in evening clothes: black tie for men, gowns or something similarly formal for women. Who on earth would be willing to subject themselves to these outrageous impositions for the sake of an archaic art form?

Well, we were. And to our pleased surprise we were able to get excellent seats. (Of course, Glyndebourne is so intimate and has such wonderful acoustics that there really aren't any bad seats.) Neither of us owned formal evening wear, but visits to the Bay Area's numerous well-stocked thrift stores soon outfitted me (I was able to buy a tuxedo, wing-collar shirt, suspenders, and black tie for under $50), and my partner cleverly combined items from her closet, her own exquisitely tatted accessories and donations from friends for a stunning look.

We decided to buy our food on site, a more expensive—about twice the cost of an equivalent meal in a local restaurant—but more practical option. Many regular Glyndebourne attendees haul in elaborate picnics and set up tables and chairs on the broad lawns, but that was logistically too complicated for us. (I have to say that the sound of champagne corks popping around us as we strolled in the gardens created quite the festive air.)

In the grass at Glyndebourne.

In Hare's play, John attempts to justify the high ticket prices (£2 in 1934, serious money in the middle of the Depression) by saying "They have to dig deep in their pockets, and if they do, by God, it'll make them sit up. They'll listen to the music with far keener attention." At one of the operas we attended the woman next to me fell asleep during the first act, probably due to a glass or two too many of champagne during her pre-performance picnic. Another woman in the same party had to make an urgent exit from our row after the lights came down at the beginning of the second act, probably for the same reason. (Their taller husbands were sitting in the row in front of them, blocking their view of the stage. As my partner put it, often the British have an exquisite sense of manners and no sense of courtesy.) At the same opera a man directly behind us with his loud voice, inane comments and braying laugh seemed to be competing for Upper Class Twit of the Year. If by setting prices outrageously high Christie hoped to keep out the boors and status-seekers and their trophy wives, his strategy didn't entirely succeed. But we also met several people who (like us) clearly had to make a financial sacrifice to attend, and who (like us) were willing to do so out of a sheer irrational love of opera.

We saw two operas on successive nights: Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (The Rose-Bearer, 1911) in a production by Richard Jones that dates from 2014, and George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, 1724) in a production by David McVicar that dates from 2005.

Der Rosenkavalier

Mariandel/Octavian (Kate Lindsey), Valzacchi (Alun Rhys-Jenkins), and members of the Glyndebourne Chorus in Der Rosenkavalier. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

In its 2014 incarnation this production caused a huge controversy by the casting of the trouser role of Octavian. Irish mezzo Tara Erraught's singing received universal praise, but she was described in reviews by male critics as "diminutive," "stocky," "dumpy," "unsightly," and a "chubby bundle of puppy-fat." [1] In this year's production Octavian was played by Kate Lindsey, who has a beautiful voice and was convincingly and ardently boyish. In my view her Octavian ranks with that of other great exponents of the role such as Brigitte Fassbaender and Elina Garanča.

It's no shame that neither the Marschallin (Michaela Kaune) nor Sophie (Louise Alder) were quite at the same level as Lindsey. As singers they weren't as subtle or nuanced, and as actresses they weren't as convincing, although here the fault may lie with Jones' sometimes blunt, over-obvious direction. At one point the Marschallin gropes and plants passionate kisses on Octavian behind the back of the boorish Baron Ochs (wonderfully sung and acted by Brindley Sherratt)—not only does this highly risky behavior seem unlikely for a woman of her class, situation and era, it makes her sudden coldness to Octavian even more bewildering.

Speaking of bewildering, the curtain opened on an empty bathtub, with water cascading down from a shower head. I later read that in the 2014 production when the curtain rose the Marschallin (Kate Royal in that production) was standing naked under this cascade; Kaune apparently declined to appear nude, so the shower was left puzzlingly empty. If Kaune was not willing to be seen showering, this stage element should have been cut; instead it remained, flowing unused throughout much of the first scene. The intention may have been to evoke Klimt's Danaë, but Danaë was missing.

Gustav Klimt, Danaë (1907) Photo: Wikipedia.org

Jones and his designers made some other odd choices. The first act of the opera seemed to be set around the time of its composition (rather than the eighteenth century as specified in the libretto): at one point the Marschallin strikes a pose for Octavian that is reminiscent of a Klimt painting, and her great Act I monologue about aging and loss is staged as a psychoanalysis session during which a silent figure who seems to be Sigmund Freud listens and takes notes. But in Act II we seem to have jumped forward in time by 20 years: Sophie's father Faninal (the excellent Michael Kraus) runs an Art Deco hotel that looks like a set for a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie. (It's not clear why Jones makes Faninal a hotelier; in the libretto he has made his fortune "supplying the army"—he's a war profiteer.) And in Act III during the final love duet between Sophie and Octavian the stage was flooded with green light, making the singers look like a particularly lurid expressionist painting—a mood that was jarringly at odds with the music.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Dresden (detail), 1907-1919. Photo: Museum of Modern Art

There were also the antics of Mohammed, the Marschallin's North African servant—a silent role played here by an adult (Adrian Richards), rather than by a young boy as called for in the libretto. Richards was directed by Jones to perform in ways that in my view verged on racist caricature. Mohammed is the last character on stage, and I have to say that I couldn't bear to watch: when the Octavian-Sophie love duet began in a sickly green haze I closed my eyes and just listened to the final five minutes or so of the opera.

That was actually a wonderful way to experience the final moments of this production. Lindsey and Alder's voices blended beautifully, and (as he had throughout the opera) conductor Robin Ticciati brought out details of this rich score that we'd never heard before. The London Philharmonic responded to Ticciati's direction with simply gorgeous playing—what a delight. I have reservations about many aspects of Jones' production, but with a strong (and in the cases of Lindsey, Sherratt and Kraus, superlative) cast and with Ticciati drawing glorious sounds from the London Philharmonic there was no question about the high level of the musical performances.

Giulio Cesare

 

Cesare (Sarah Connolly), Cleopatra (Joélle Harvey), and members of the Glyndebourne Chorus in Giulio Cesare. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

The next night the playing of the period-instrument Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was not quite so gorgeous. Of course, period instruments don't provide as lush or as big a sound as modern instruments, but beyond that there were occasionally some distinctly sour notes from the gut-string violins and the notoriously difficult valveless natural horns (the horns struggled particularly in Cesare's "hunting" aria "Va tacito.") Conductor William Christie masterfully held things together, though, even when two of the singers at different times seemed about to lose their way in the middle of an aria.

This was the fourth time David McVicar's production has been staged at Glyndebourne, and the first time Danielle de Niese was not featured as Cleopatra. (It was the performance that made her a star, and fortunately it has been preserved on video.) American soprano Joélle Harvey bravely took on this role that de Niese has defined so indelibly, and acquitted herself more than honorably. She does not have quite the commanding stage presence of de Niese, and she performed the elaborate choreography gamely, if not quite with de Niese's charm and grace. But Harvey has a beautiful voice, and convincingly traced Cleopatra's journey from kittenish seduction to genuine feeling.

Joélle Harvey as Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

When Sarah Connolly stepped forward at the start of the opera to sing Cesare's entrance aria she sounded seriously underpowered. My partner and I wondered if she was suffering from an unannounced indisposition, a suspicion made even more likely later on when she momentarily lost the thread of "Aure, deh, per pietà," an aria she must have sung onstage dozens of times. (Christie recognized her difficulties immediately and raised his hand to guide her back into sync with the orchestra. It was done so seamlessly that my partner didn't even notice.) Connolly is an excellent actress, though, and whatever vocal difficulties she was experiencing did not make her portrayal less dramatically engaged.

The rest of the cast was excellent. Christophe Dumaux has portrayed Tolomeo, Cleopatra's devious and lustful brother who contends with her for the throne, in two of Glyndebourne's earlier productions of Giulio Cesare. As he has previously, he brought to the role a nice swaggering assurance, a surprising athleticism, and an incisive countertenor voice. Achilla, Tolomeo's menacing lieutenant, was sung powerfully by bass John Moore.

Achilla (John Moore) and Tolomeo (Christophe Dumaux) in Giulio Cesare. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

Cornelia, the widow of the murdered Roman general Pompey and the object of the lust and ambitions of both Tolomeo and Achilla, was sung movingly by Patricia Bardon (also a veteran of two previous Cesare productions at Glyndebourne). Mezzo Anna Stéphany made palpable the anguish of Cornelia's son Sesto, who vows revenge on his father's murderers. Their sorrowful duet at the close of Act I, "Son nata a lagrimar," was deeply moving.

Cornelia (Patricia Bardon) and Sesto (Anna Stéphany) in Giulio Cesare. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

Like Jones' Der Rosenkavalier McVicar's Cesare also plays with stereotypes, but does so in a witty and knowing way (and in Dumaux and Kangmin Justin Kim, who sang Cleopatra's flighty but loyal servant Nireno, he has performers who clearly relish their roles). In the theater it was even more apparent than on video that the production comments on the lengthy history of British imperialism: the military conquests of India and Egypt are referenced as the naval ships in the background gradually change from sailing vessels to steam-powered dreadnoughts, and the bodies strewn about the stage in Act III seem to allude to the Indian Uprising. There's also a sly nod to the traditions of Glyndebourne, as in the final scene (apparently real) champagne is served all around—even to the deceased characters (neatly solving the problem of their participation in the final chorus). Despite Connolly's apparent vocal issues and a few wayward musical moments, this production once again proved a triumph. It was, in a word, sublime.

For more on Glyndebourne and its history, please see:

• The moderate soprano: Audrey Mildmay 
• The first Glyndebourne Mozart recordings

Update 5 July 2020: A video stream of Glyndebourne's 2014 production of Der Rosenkavalier starring Kate Royal as the Marschallin, Tara Erraught as Octavian, Teodora Gheorghiu as Sophie, and Lars Woldt as Baron Ochs is available on the Glyndebourne website or the Glyndebourne YouTube channel from now until next Sunday 12 July at 5 pm Glyndebourne time/noon EDT/9 am PDT.

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1. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, herself a famous Octavian, wrote in response, "It is ALL about the human voice. . .If young singers are pressurized into accepting a bigger emphasis on physical shape over sound. . .then we are robbing ourselves of the great singers of the future." And tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones posted a message on Facebook stating, "It is not a gender issue. No one, male or female, should have to experience such blatant disrespect. That such a situation exists at all is utterly unacceptable. The peddling of the 'Ken & Barbie agenda' to the profession and to the public has done an unbelievable amount of damage to the art form, to the importance and relevance of genuinely outstanding singing in the business and to the vocal tradition as a whole. Important artists have been and are being marginalized because they do not conform to the aesthetic agenda the industry would have championed." See Mary Elizabeth Williams' article for Salon.com, "An opera singer's backlash wasn't just sexism."

A Rare Thing: Vicente Martin y Soler's Una Cosa Rara

Who was the most popular opera composer in Mozart's Vienna? It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog that it wasn't Mozart (see "The Chastity Tree"). By the measure of the number of performances per opera the most popular composer by far in Vienna during Mozart's time there was Vicente Martín y Soler. Two of the three operas Martín wrote for the Burgtheater were smash hits, between them racking up 120 performances over six seasons (1786-1792). By contrast, Mozart's two most successful operas over those same six seasons, Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786) and Don Giovanni (Don Juan, 1787), were performed a total of 53 times. [1]

The opera that made Martín's reputation was Una cosa rara, ossia Bellezza ed onestà (A rare thing, or Beauty and faithfulness, 1786). The libretto was adapted by Lorenzo Da Ponte from Luis Vélez de Guevara's play La Luna de la Sierra. Da Ponte was a busy man: he also wrote the libretti for Figaro and Don Giovanni as well as for Martín's other hit, L'arbore di Diana (The Tree of Diana, 1787), among many others. In his memoirs Da Ponte describes the impact of the first performance of Cosa rara on 17 November 1786:

The evening of the première arrived. The theatre was full, most of the audience being composed of enemies ready to hiss. However, right from the beginning of the performance they found such grace, sweetness and melody in the music, and such novelty and interest in the words, that they seemed be overcome by an ecstasy of pleasure. A silence, a degree of attention never before accorded to an Italian opera, was followed by a storm of applause and exclamations of delight and pleasure. . .In particular one of the duets seemed to electrify the audience and fill them with a kind of heavenly fire. [2]

"One of the duets" probably refers to the Act II reconciliation duet between the faithful village girl Lilla (sung by Nancy Storace, who had sung Susanna in Mozart's Figaro a few months earlier) and her jealous beau, the shepherd Lubino (sung by Stefano Mandini, who had been Count Almaviva in Figaro). Da Ponte reports that the Emperor Joseph himself led the calls for the duet to be encored, despite his own decree forbidding encores of ensembles. [3]

Da Ponte's memoirs are not always testimony of the highest reliability, but in this case his account of how rapturously the duet was received is corroborated by the diary of Count Karl von Zinzendorf, a court official. After the second performance of Cosa rara on 20 November he wrote that "The duo between Mandini and Lilla in the second act is charming." On 1 December, possibly referring to the third performance on 24 November, he wrote, "The pretty duo between Mandini and Storace was repeated; it is very voluptuous. I left disturbed." In early January he wrote, "I find the duo between Mandini and Storace so tender and so expressive that it poses a danger to the young members of the audience. One needs to have had some experience in order to see it with a cool head." [4]

Here is the duet, sung by Montserrat Figueras (Lilla) and Iñaki Fresán (Lubino), from the live recording with Le Concert des Nations conducted by Jordi Savall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNTrAIr_JTo

LILLA. Pace caro mio sposo. LUBINO. Pace mio dolce amore. LILLA. Non sarai più geloso? LUBINO. No, non sarò, mio core. LILLA. Mi vorrai sempre? LUBINO. Bene. LILLA. Mi sarai sempre? LUBINO. Amante. LILLA. Son la tua sola? LUBINO. Speme. LILLA. Ti serberai? LUBINO. Costante. LILLA e LUBINO. Vieni, tra i bracci miei, stringi, o mio caro ben, l'anima mia tu sei, ti vo' morir nel sen. LUBINO. Dammi quella manina. LILLA. Sì, sì, mio bel diletto. LUBINO. Toccami il cor, carina. LILLA. Come ti balza in petto. LUBINO. Mi vorrai sempre? LILLA. Bene. LUBINO. Mi sarai sempre? LILLA. Amante. LUBINO. Son la tua sola? LILLA. Speme. LUBINO. Ti serberai? LILLA. Costante. LILLA e LUBINO. Vieni, tra i bracci miei, stringi, o mio caro ben, l'anima mia tu sei, ti vo' morir nel sen.

LILLA. Peace, my beloved husband. LUBINO. Peace, my sweet love. LILLA. You won't be jealous anymore? LUBINO. No, never, my love. LILLA. You'll always love me...? LUBINO. With all my heart. LILLA. You'll always be my...? LUBINO. Lover. LILLA. Am I your only...? LUBINO. Hope. LILLA. Will you remain...? LUBINO. Faithful. LILLA and LUBINO. Come to my arms, Embrace me, my dear one, You are my soul, I want to die in your arms. LUBINO. Give me your little hand. LILLA. Yes, yes, my beautiful beloved. LUBINO. Touch my heart, dearest. LILLA. How it throbs in your chest. LUBINO. You'll always love me...? LILLA. With all my heart. LUBINO. You'll always be my...? LILLA. Lover. LUBINO. Am I your only...? LILLA. Hope. LUBINO. Will you remain...? LILLA. Faithful. LILLA and LUBINO. Come to my arms, Embrace me, my dear one, You are my soul, I want to die in your arms.

The setting is a small village, where as the opera begins Queen Isabella and her entourage have arrived after a day's perilous hunting. Suddenly Lilla runs in and throws herself at the Queen's feet, begging her protection: she and Lubino are in love, but her brother Tita is trying to force her to marry the village governor (Podestà). The Queen's son Prince Giovanni is immediately struck by Lilla's beauty and determines to seduce her. The Queen appoints the elderly courtier Corrado as Lilla's guardian, but Corrado is himself smitten with her. Beset by importunate suitors on all sides, Lilla thinks of her absent Lubino and the idyllic days of their love in "Dolce mi parve un di" (Love once seemed sweet to me):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC0BvvPKZdE

Echoing Figaro, the Prince unsuccessfully attempts to bribe Lilla for her sexual favors. There are disguises and mistaken identities in the night, Lubino's unjust suspicions of Lilla's unfaithfulness, and a scene where Lilla hides in a closet and emerges to the surprise of the other characters. Cosa rara, though, lacks Figaro's subversive political bite. It is the Queen who sets everything to rights (though Corrado unfairly takes the fall for the Prince's behavior), and Lubino is generally subservient—at least to the Prince, if not to the Podestà. But perhaps it was that validation of beneficent nobility, along with Martín's gift for "grace, sweetness and melody in the music," that helped ensure the popularity of the opera. Da Ponte reported that ". . .The ladies in particular. . .wanted to see only Cosa rara and to dress only in the fashion of Cosa rara." [5]

Mozart himself acknowledged the opera's popularity. In the banquet scene in the last act of Don Giovanni, an onstage band plays excerpts from well-known operas of the day, starting with the first act finale of Cosa rara. In that finale Lilla's faithfulness is proved after her emergence from the closet, and the Queen (Maria Angeles Peters) unites the village couples—Lubino with Lilla, and Lilla's brother Tita (Fernando Belaza-Leoz) with his sweetheart Ghita (Gloria Fabuel)—to general rejoicing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCK9SSgouYw

And here is Mozart's quotation of this music in Don Giovanni's banquet scene. Don Giovanni, who has spent much of the opera trying to seduce the village girl Zerlina, asks his servant Leporello, "What do you think of this fine concert?" Leporello replies, "It's worthy of you." Mozart and Da Ponte are here relying on their audience's recognition of the parallels between Don Giovanni and the character of Prince Giovanni in Cosa rara:

https://youtu.be/DZTYRBs1RII?t=2h40m46s (quotation ends at 2:42:15)

Don Giovanni is sung by Rodney Gilfry and Leporello by László Polgár, with the Orchestra of the Opernhaus Zurich conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Cosa rara held the stage for nearly four decades. But by the mid-1820s it had fallen out of the repertory and was no longer performed. Meanwhile, Mozart's operas (especially Don Giovanni) had been recognized as masterpieces and were becoming ever more firmly established. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries Cosa rara was known only by Mozart's musical quote, and Leporello's comment referring to the Prince must have been mystifying to most operagoers. Martín was considered a minor footnote to the story of Mozart.

But as the Savall recording shows, Cosa rara is full of excellent music. In fact Martín does some surprising things. After the overture the music flows directly into the first scene without pausing, driving the drama forward; Mozart would later adopt the same technique in Don Giovanni. Another surprise is how many ensembles Martín employs throughout the opera (not just in the act finales), a development Mozart would take even further in Cosi fan tutte (That's the way they all are, 1790). The conventional narrative of Don Giovanni's banquet scene was Mozart's genius condescending to Martín's mere talent; Savall's recording complicates that story by revealing that Mozart borrowed significant compositional ideas from Martín.

The live Savall recording of Cosa rara with the period-instrument Concert des Nations is highly enjoyable. There is occasionally some stage noise, audience applause marks the end of the acts (and occurs after at least one aria), and as the Queen, Maria Angeles Peters sings consistently flat. But these minor flaws don't detract significantly from the pleasure the performance affords. There is another live recording from 1999 featuring Giancarlo Andretta conducting the modern-instrument Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice (available for streaming for free through Opera Today), but the Queen on that recording is not much of an improvement over Peters, and overall I prefer Savall's singers and well-judged tempi. (Andretta's speeds seem alternately rushed and sluggish by comparison.) Good as Savall's version is, though, it was issued in 1991, more than 25 years ago; it's surprising that no other early-music specialist has recorded this opera since. Perhaps it's time for new recordings and new stagings of the all-too-rare Cosa rara.

Update 22 December 2018: Una cosa rara was selected for my Favorites of 2018: Recordings.

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1. John Platoff, "Mozart and his Rivals: Opera in Vienna," Current Musicology, Vol. 51, No. 1, 1993, p. 105-111.
2. Lorenzo Da Ponte, Memoirs, quoted in Sheila Hodges, Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Life and Times of Mozart's Librettist, University of Wisconsin Press, 2002, pp. 76-77.
3. The ban was instituted not "a few days earlier" as Da Ponte has it but on 9 May 1786, in response to the enthusiastic reception of Figaro, already a lengthy opera even without encores.
4. John Platoff, "A New History for Martín's 'Una cosa rara,'" The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1994, pp. 85-115. Curiously, except for the first one Zinzendorf's comments do not correspond to the performance dates of Cosa rara as compiled by Otto Michtner in Das Alte Burgtheater als Opernbühne (Böhlhaus, 1970), pp. 488-489. Zinzendorf's remark of 7 January 1787 comes more than a month after the most recent performance of the opera on 4 December 1786. (It was performed again on 12 January.) The duet must have been "disturbing" indeed for him to remember it so vividly five weeks later. Zinzendorf was not so impressed by Figaro; after the first performance on 1 May 1786 he wrote "The opera bored me" (quoted in Michael Rose, The Birth of an Opera, Norton 2013, p. 100).
5. Da Ponte, quoted in Hodges, p. 77.

Eca de Queiroz: The Maias

There's a technique used repeatedly by the 19th-century Portuguese writer José Maria de Eça de Queiroz (modern spelling Queirós) in his great novel The Maias (1888), but it's so effective it never gets old. A character will become effusively idealistic, or romantic, or philosophical, and then reality will inevitably (and comically) assert itself:

• At a tribute dinner the guest of honor is feted, lofty and noble sentiments are expressed, and "toasts were exchanged, ardent and eloquent." Then we are given a view of the table: "The dessert lay strewn about in disorder on the tablecloth, and on Alencar's plate cigarette butts were mixed with bits of chewed pineapple." (Book 1, Chapter 6). And unbeknownst to the guest of honor, one of the men offering toasts of undying friendship is sleeping with his wife.

• Carlos Eduardo da Maia, the novel's protagonist, contemplates an affair with a married woman who seems to be sending him unmistakable signals. But their first passionate kiss ends in slapstick:

"The Countess selected a bud with two leaves and came up herself to pin it on his frock-coat. The warm scent of verbena rising from her heaving breast assailed Carlos's senses. She took a long time pinning the flower; her fingers were tremulous and slow, and seemed to linger and sleep on the cloth of his coat. . .

"Without knowing how it happened, irresistibly, Carlos found himself with his lips on hers. The silk of her dress rasped against his suit with a soft rustle as he held her in his arms. White as wax, she threw back her head and tenderly closed her eyes. And, clasping her as though she were dead, he took a step; his knee encountered a low sofa, that slid away escaping him. Carlos followed the wide sofa as it rolled off, and he stumbled as he did so, for her silk train had got wrapped round his feet. Then he bumped against the pedestal upon which the [bust of the] Count elevated his inspired forehead. A long sigh died amidst the sound of crushed skirts. . .Suddenly, in the hall, the voice of the Count sounded." (Book 1, Chapter 9)

• In the closing pages of the novel, a middle-aged Carlos and his friend Ega are exchanging their hard-won philosophies of life—when suddenly they realize that they are about to miss a streetcar:

"It was not worth taking one step to reach anything on this earth—because everything resolved itself, as the wise man in Ecclesiastes had already taught, in dust and disillusion.

'If I was told that a Rothschild's fortune or the imperial crown of Charles V awaited me down the road here if I ran, I wouldn't quicken my pace. No! I wouldn't change this slow, prudent, safe and steady step which is the only one you should have in life.'

'Nor I!' agreed Carlos, with conviction. . .

'Wait!' cried Ega. 'Here's a tram coming. We'll catch it if we hurry!'

'We'll make it!'

"The two friends set off at a brisker pace. And Carlos, who had flung aside his cigar, was saying in the keen cold breeze which stung their faces: '. . .As you say, it's not worth making any effort, or chasing anxiously after anything whatsoever. . .'

"And to catch the tram the two friends had to run desperately down the hill and along the Aterro under the light of the rising moon." (Book 2, Chapter 8) [1]

The Maias is about the decadence of a family, a society and a nation, but at the same time Eça undermines grandiose narratives about progress and renewal by constantly intruding the comedy of human incompetence and vanity. We follow the adventures of Carlos, the sole male heir of the Maias, who dissipates his modest ambitions in an endless social round of dinners, theater, horse races, love affairs, and duels threatened but somehow never fought.

In a letter to a friend Eça called The Maias "that vast machine of a fresco done in sombre colours, in boringly monumental proportions, pompous and frivolous, which may well earn me the name of the Michelangelo of the insipid. Oh well. . ." Of course it's not Eça's novel but the world it depicts that is pompous and frivolous. At the same time that world enforces rigid social mores that destroy happiness and lead inexorably to tragedy. The obvious comparison (and possibly a source of Eça's technique of ironic undercutting) is Flaubert.

Eça had both an insider's and an outsider's perspective on the society he depicts so scathingly. Born out of wedlock, he was only acknowledged by his mother after he'd turned 40. (His parents married when he was four; despite being unacknowledged, Eça took his mother's maiden name.) In his late 20s, after earning a law degree, he was appointed to the consular service and thereafter largely lived outside of Portugal. He was sent on official missions to Cuba, the United States, England (where most of The Maias was written), and France, where he died in 1900 at age 54.

If Flaubert is one source for The Maias, another might be Schopenhauer, who observed that a "wish fulfilled at once makes way for a new one. . .No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines; but it is always like the alms thrown to a beggar, which reprieves him today so that his misery may be prolonged till tomorrow." [2] When Carlos finally experiences a great passion his idyll is ultimately shattered by the revelation of a secret relating to his lover's background. But perhaps a greater horror is his recognition that, despite their blissful love, he has begun to grow tired of her:

. . .that night as he lay beside Maria who was asleep, tired out, he felt, like the first cold breath of death, a presentiment of what might come.

He could feel emerging from the depths of his being a satiety, only tenuous now, yet nevertheless already perceptible. . .his mind wandered to another life he could lead, far from here, in a simple house all open to the sun, with a legitimate wife, a domestic angel, petite and shy and modest, a woman who did not cry out lasciviously nor use such a warm, heavy perfume! And unfortunately he no longer doubted it—if he went away with her, he would very soon be beset by the indescribable horror of physical nausea. . .Henceforth existence could only offer him intolerable bitterness. (Book 2, Ch. 7)

Carlos lacks the moral courage either to seize the happiness that has been offered him or to directly face the consequences of the transgression he and his lover have unwittingly committed. His punishment is to be exiled forever from deep feeling. He turns once again to fleeting pleasures, and remains only fitfully aware that, as Pascal has written, "The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries." [3]

Update 22 December 2018: The Maias was selected for my Favorites of 2018: Books.

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1. José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, Os Maias (The Maias, 1888), translated by Patricia McGowan Pinheiro and Ann Stevens, J.M. Dent, 1986; translation originally published by The Bodley Head, 1965. There is another translation by Margaret Jull Costa published by New Directions in 2007.
    
2. Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation, 1818-59), Vol. 1, translated by E.F.J. Payne, Dover, 1966, p. 196.
    
3. Blaise Pascal, Pensées (Thoughts, 1670), translated by W.F. Trotter, E.P. Dutton, 1958, 171: Misery.

In memoriam: Glenn Branca

In the early 1980s I was anxiously awaiting the moment I could to move to New York City. (I hadn't figured out what I would do there or how I would possibly afford it, but never mind.) I haunted newsstands (remember those?) for the latest issues of the Village Voice and the New York Rocker, poring over their blurry print for scraps of information about a downtown music, art and performance scene that I could only experience vicariously.

In the the March 1982 New York Rocker I read this review from Michael Shore about a new album called The Ascension:

Ever wish the Clash would just shut up and keep playing the guitar intro to "Bored with the USA" over and over again? Ever tried to turn down the channel with Joey Ramone's voice so you could just hear a wall of loud, wild guitars. . .?
Say hello to Glenn Branca.

Shore went on to describe Branca's music as "a grinding, thrashing, distorted electric semi-raga that builds and builds toward a deliberately delayed orgasm." But he also noted that "the standard—and accurate—critical line has been that, good as Branca's music is, it's just not the same on record as it is live, where it becomes a true physical presence, and where one gets the added visual kick of Branca's emphatic conducting style."

Conducting? Yes, Branca fronted "orchestras" of eight or ten or twelve retuned guitars, and soon he was writing album-long pieces that he called "symphonies." I thought calling an hour of clashing guitars and pounding drums a symphony was either the most hilarious thing I'd ever heard, or the most pretentious. Was Branca seeking legitimacy from a system that the punk and No Wave movements he emerged from had tried to overthrow?

When Branca came to Chicago to perform in the New Music America festival I convinced a good friend to go with me to Navy Pier, the unlikely venue for the show. I recall being vaguely disappointed at this first encounter with Branca's music: the promised wall of sound seemed to be dissipated by the cavernous hall, and the guitars were strummed rather than (as I hoped) thrashed, scraped with broken glass or set on fire. It was not the overwhelming experience I'd been expecting.*

(I've been trying to determine what piece I heard that night. The festival schedule says that Branca "will perform an adaptation of his Symphony No. 2: The Peak of the Sacred," but that symphony is for "mallet guitars," which Branca describes in a 2010 Village Voice interview as being "built with screws, and two-by-fours." I seem to remember musicians playing what looked like conventional guitars. In an interview from 2012 posted on New Music Box Branca says that John Cage attended the Navy Pier concert and the next day launched into a diatribe against his music. Branca says that the piece Cage hated was Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses (1981). A photograph of Branca's group performing Indeterminate Activity in 1983 which accompanies the New Music Box post looks like the group I saw in Chicago, and this recording sounds something like what I remember hearing.)

A few years later I started listening to Sonic Youth. Often beginning in atmospheric dissonance, their songs built to squalling, clangorous peaks. I soon learned that Sonic Youth's guitarists, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, had played in Branca's groups (and I think both had been on stage with him in Chicago; I seem to remember Ranaldo's wide-eyed stare). I sought out Sonic Youth's earlier recordings, and the very strong Branca influence that was apparent in them—their first records were even released on Neutral, Branca's label—led me to listen again to Branca's music.

I found that his Symphony No. 6: Devil Choirs at the Gates of Heaven (1989) sounded more like what I'd hoped to hear that night in Chicago. Branca has called Symphony No. 6 "a straight on, straight out guitar piece" (in the Village Voice interview); the recording was even co-released on Sonic Youth's label at the time, Blast First:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyNkbw9R0hU

Another band that can be heard in Branca's music is Joy Division, especially in those moments when Branca achieves an almost ethereal stasis. His Symphony No. 3: Gloria for modified harpsichords (1983) has a feeling that's somewhat similar to the opening of Joy Division's "Atmosphere" (1980):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssYV-mRL5Jc

Sadly, Glenn Branca died last week at age 69, of throat cancer. Perhaps devil choirs greeted him at the gates of heaven. 

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* The festival was an informal 70th birthday celebration for John Cage. In addition to Cage, among the many other performers appearing in the week-long festival were Muhal Richard Abrams, Ruth Anderson, Robert Ashley, Alvin Curran, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Joan LaBarbara, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Frederick Rzewski, and Christian Wolff. Each concert cost $3, or you could see all six Navy Pier concerts for $10 (serious money for me in those days!).