Few singers today cause me as much consternation as Vivica Genaux. For more than a decade the Alaskan mezzo has been a major star in Europe tirelessly exploring obscure corners of the bel canto and baroque repertoire. She marshals one of the most awesome coloratura techniques around, while on the other hand, the voice itself can often be woefully harsh, with little sweetness or beauty and with a severely compromised top.

Not having heard her live since her impressive Arsace trilled with Angela Meade’s break-through Semiramide at the 2009 Caramoor Festival, I was curious to attend Genaux’s all-Vivaldi program Thursday evening at Zankel Hall, the next-to-the-last stop on an extensive cross-country tour with her frequent collaborators, the superb Sicilian violin virtuoso Fabio Biondi and his group Europa Galante.  

One first noticed Genaux as a protégée of conductor Will Crutchfield who featured her in some of his earliest bel canto revivals at Caramoor including La Donna del Lago, Lucrezia Borgia and La Cenerentola, the last of which has remained one of her calling cards. A Met debut in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia in 1997 replacing the ever-unpredictable Vesselina Kasarova led only to two more Rosinas in 2002. However, opportunities to sing baroque opera (as well as more bel canto) beckoned in Europe, specifically with conductor René Jacobs who cast her in Hasse’s Solimano and Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra and as Handel’s Rinaldo which they recorded together, along with an important recital of arias written for the castrato Farinelli.

Since that Farinelli CD was released almost ten years ago, Genaux has evolved into one of the most important singers of eighteenth century music, touring widely with the best HIP orchestras: Concerto Köln, Kammerorchester Basel, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen, in addition to Europa Galante which whom she has recorded a lot of Vivaldi on EMI/Virgin Classics: the complete operas Bajazet, Ercole sul Termodonte and L’Oracolo in Messenia (taped just last month in Vienna), as well as a solo CD “Pyrotechnics“.

Besides Vivaldi’s, Genaux has consistently sought out challenging, nearly unknown works, like Domenico Scarlatti’s L’Ottavia restituita al trono, J.C. Bach’s Zanaida, and Meyerbeer’s Emma di Resburgo, whose title role was sung by another controversial baroque diva, Simone Kermes.

One of Genaux’s recent tours was called “La Nuova Sirena” featuring arias (by Sarro, Pollarolo, Orlandini and others) composed for one of the most famous singers of the 18th century: Faustina Bordoni, who was, perhaps not coincidentally, married to Johann Adoph Hasse, a composer Genaux has long championed. A contemporary portrait of Faustina by composer Johann Joachim Quantz (as reported by Charles Burney) in many ways might also serve as one of the 21st century Genaux:

Faustina had a mezzo-soprano voice that was less clear than penetrating. Her compass now was only from B flat to G in alt; but after this time she extended its limits downward. She possessed what the Italians call un cantar granito; her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a fluent tongue for pronouncing words rapidly and distinctly, and a flexible throat for divisions, with so beautiful a shake that she put it in motion upon short notice, just when she would. The passages might be smooth, or by leaps, or consisting of iterations of the same note; their execution was equally easy to her as to any instrument whatever. She was, doubtless, the first who introduced with success a swift repetition of the same note. She sang adagios with great passion and expression, but was not equally successful if such deep sorrow were to be impressed on the hearer as might require dragging, sliding, or notes of syncopation and tempo rubato. She had a very happy memory in arbitrary changes and embellishments, and a clear and quick judgment in giving to words their full value and expression. In her action she was very happy; and as her performance possessed that flexibility of muscles and face-play which constitute expression, she succeeded equally well in furious, tender, and amorous parts. In short, she was born for singing and acting.

I wonder if any who attended the Meyerbeer performance in Vienna hoped that partisans of Kermes (who recorded a CD of Handel arias written for Francesca Cuzzoni, Faustina’s great rival in the 1720s) and of Genaux might break out in fistfights as their 18th century counterparts are rumored to have done. Perhaps today’s fans are just less physically demonstrative–for better or worse.

All but one of the works sung by Genaux on Thursday’s program were drawn from the “Pyrotechnics” CD: arias from Rosmira, Tito Manlio, La Fida Ninfa, Semiramide, Catone in Utica, and La Griselda, in addition to one from Il Farnace, an opera she will be singing onstage this spring in Strasbourg.

Unsurprisingly, the evening stirred up many of my previous ambivalences about Genaux—it’s thrilling to be in the presence of a singer in such cool command—there was never any doubt that anything and everything required of her by these often unreasonably demanding arias would be met with almost insouciant ease. Additionally all the arias were extravagantly ornamented, including some of the most interesting and difficult da capo repeats I have ever heard either live or on recordings.

That said, the voice remains often raw and edgy, even ugly, particularly shrill at louder dynamics on top where occasionally ill-advised ornaments took her. And, in an age obsessed with visuals, the slim and ravishingly beautiful Genaux (resplendent in a different gown for each half of the program) can be disconcertingly bizarre to watch due to her utterly unorthodox way of singing florid passages—the jarring lip and jaw movements resemble no other singer I’ve ever seen and can be truly off-putting.

In addition, there was a decided lack of variety in the music she sang (clearly chosen to show off her strengths but not always representing Vivald’s best work). One hungered for a light and airy moment or something simple and moving in the midst of all these demonically intense display pieces. Even the non-Vivaldi encores (arias by Giacomelli and Ricardo Broschi used in Vivaldi’s pasticcio Bajazet) were similarly darkly emotional and relentlessly virtuosic.

Having heard Europa Galante many times both with and without singers, it is easy to take for granted their suave and idiomatic command of this repertoire. Zankel’s audience was lucky that Genaux was accompanied by a conductor with whom she seems to consistently deliver her best performances. Always led by Biondi playing first violin, Europa Galante has been at the forefront of historically-informed performance for years now, and the instrumental works included on Thursday’s program were no mere fillers between the arias; in fact, the unusual Locatelli concerto grosso called “Il Pianto d’Arianna” and the surprising violin concerto by the heretofore unknown Pietro Nardini were highlights of the evening.

The concert reached its apex with the final work on the printed program, an aria virtually unknown twenty years ago but one that has now become almost a warhorse: “Agitata da due venti.” Genaux’s reading compellingly demonstrated what audiences just a few blocks north had been conspicuously missing during the past weeks:

Photo: Christian Steiner