Trick or chat

Once again, La Cieca can do no better than to quote the ineffable BAB, who says, “The beauty of the Saturday afternoon Chats this summer has been that everyone picks what they want and then we compare notes with what’s happening elsewhere. Ordinarily I make no recommendations, but I have decided to do things differently this time.”

Oh really?

First let’s deal with the ones I’ve already heard and recorded. The clear winner is the Bayreuth Lohengrin (RTP ANTENA 2, 1-5 P.M. EDT) wih Jonas Kaufmann’s Golden Age contribution. A close second is a “classic” Il Barbiere from The Met with Prey and Horne. I liked Stoyanova and Costello better than Poplavskaya and Grigolo in La Boheme (Klara, 2-6).

Gretry’s Andromaque (LRT Klasika, 11-2) is strictly for completists or for those in constant pursuit of things they haven’t heard before. It brings distinct rewards. Hindemith’s Cardillac (numerous sites, 1-5) shows that Uusitalo can be a pretty good singer — just not of Scarpia or Van der Dencken.

Gheorghiu may have been on the outs with Alagna but he made a better partner than Didyk in La Rondine (WRTI 1-5, and since this station has been wrong the last three weeks, I’m willing to bet that the swallow will not show up this week.) A little Rossini goes a long way, and Sigismondo (NPR World of Opera, numerous sites and times) shows just how far. Not only is a lot of it re-cycled from earlier works, but Rossini re-used parts of it later. Good performance though.

Idomeneo from the Canadian Opera (CBC Two, 1-5) is earnest, but flat. On the Rossini front, there’s also the commercial L’Italiana with Ramey and Horne, which is not to be sneezed at, but is available from the usual sources.

Some performances are to be avoided: Iolanthe (Deutschlandradio Kultur 1-4) because it is nice but provincial; Il Ritorno di Ulise from La Scala (Espace Musique, 1-5:30) because there are far better versions floating around; ditto Macbetto from Utah Opera (KBYU 1-5); Die Walkure (Espace 2 2-6) because it is dull; The Cunning Little Vixen (WETA 1-5) because I don’t like Janacek, and La Fanciulla del West (KUSF 1-5) because this tendency to self-abuse must be discouraged, which might also be said of Simon Boccanegra (Latvia 2-4:30) for other reasons.

These performances are new to me:

12:00-5:00 VPR CLASSICAL. Great Broadway Shows. Sometimes, rarely, this locally-produced program will come up with something worthwhile. It’s an interesting and praiseworthy programming concept but lacks imagination and flair.

3:00-7:00 RADIO TRE, CESKY ROZHLAS VLTAVA. Smetana’s THE KISS from The Wexford Festival. I love Smetana, love The Kiss, and Wexford has a knack for finding major voices just before they hit the Big Time.

1:00-4:00 AUDITORIUM. A rather interesting grab bag, including recordings by Leyla Gencer and Hanne-Lore Kuhse.

1:00-5:00 FRANCE MUSIQUE. Stravinsky miscellany, seemingly a concert from Lyon on October 12, with a performance of Le Rossignol.

1:00-6:00 WFMT NETWORK
LOHENGRIN from Houston. Three out of the four leads look good — Pieczonka, Goerke, and Fink — but Stuart O’Neill has never impressed me.

1:00-5:30 BBC 3, RADIO CLASICA DE ESPANA. PEARL FISHERS from Covent Garden. Cabell was not that good in recent outings as Leila; Osborn and Finley strike me as just bad casting. (In Chat last night, Manou had praise for Cabell and Osborn.)

1:30-5:00 BARTOK RADIO. A performance of DIE ZAUBERFLOTE from Budapest in 1973, with an all-Hungarian cast (singing in Hungarian, I assume.)

1:00-5:00 RADIO 4 NETHERLANDS. ROMEO ET JULIETTE with Lyubov Petrova and Ismail Jordi. I don’t know either of them enough to have an opinion. Anybody?

La Casa della Cieca is open all day.