Countermelody

• Episode 412. Luciano and Mirella Go Home Again

  Today some real meat and potatoes Italian opera. Oh, wait, perhaps we should call it spaghetti alla bolognese rather than meat and potatoes. So often on the podcast I bring singers to the fore that are not as well known as some of the biggest stars in opera. But today I bring you both Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni, two of the most popular and celebrated Italian opera stars in the history of opera, especially opera in the late twentieth century. As many already know, the two singers both grew up in Modena, where their working-class mothers worked in the same cigar factory; as budding opera singers, they subsequently studied voice with the same teacher in Mantova. They remained lifelong friends and often sang together, especially in La Bohème. In 1980, the two returned to their native Modena where they performed together at the Teatro Comunale di Modena, known since 2021 as the Teatro Comunale Pavarotti-Freni. The concert was conducted by Freni’s ex-husband Leone Magiera, also a native of Modena. In this concert, they performed duets from their shared repertoire: Elisir d’amore, Traviata, and L’amico Fritz. They also performed solo arias from La figlia del reggimento and Vespri siciliani (Freni) and Werther and L’africana (Pavarotti). The material is supplemented on today’s episode with arias from both singers in contemporaneous live performances at the Arena di Verona. And this entire songfest is topped with the cherry of a live 1965 concert on French television of “O soave fanciulla” in which their joined voices are heard in the first flush of youth. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 411. Orchestral Song [International Edition]

  An old LP of Tōru Takemitsu’s Coral Island and a conversation with a new friend about American Exceptionalism inspired today’s episode, the “International Edition” of my ongoing series on Orchestral Song. Coral Island is still here, although I ended up using a later (and better) recording than the one in my collection. I also feature the work of composers Karol Szymanowski, Augustyn Bloch, Aminollah Hossein, Kaija Saariaho, Frederic Mompou, Ottorino Respighi, Fartein Valen, Bohuslav Martinů, and many others, performed by Gerald Finley, Andréa Guiot, Robert Tear, Dorothy Dorow, Halina Łukomska, Victoria de los Ángeles, Andrzej Hiolski, Bernard Kruysen, and Marianne Crebassa, for starters! I have been enjoying so much preparing these recent “potpourri” episodes, and this one is particularly chock full of surprises and discoveries! Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 410. Magda Olivero Revisited

  If we have to live in a world of extremes, I want it to be a world in which Magda Olivero reigns supreme. Her artistry combined both integrity (personal, vocal, and artistic), alongside originality and fearless risk-taking. She was never afraid to go out on a limb and it was this quality (alongside her extraordinary longevity) that endeared her to so many opera lovers. Today I have culled my Olivero collection and combined excerpts from a number of rare albums in my collection with material culled from The Magda Olivero Archives, maintained by Denis Robert, a friend and confidante of Olivero who has made it his life’s work to present the great diva in all her many facets. We hear the great diva in excerpts from Manon Lescaut, Mefistofele, Traviata, Tristan (!), Bohème, Manon, Medea, and Adriana Lecouvreur (probably her most significant role). In addition, I offer up live excerpts from her two Carnegie Hall recitals as well as rare recordings of Italian songs, including an excerpt from her official farewell appearance in 1991 at the age of 81. There was never another soprano even remotely like her, and if she is your cup of tea (as she most emphatically is mine), this episode will provide an exceptional opportunity to revel in many aspects of her artistry. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 409. Arie antiche [Schirmer Edition]

  Today’s potpourri episode is a special one for anyone who has ever studied voice in a college, university or conservatory. One of the primary sources of repertoire for instructors of singing has been a book first published by G. Schirmer in 1894 entitled Twenty-Four Italian Songs and Arias, consisting primarily of arie antiche, i.e. songs from the Italian baroque (Caldara, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Durante, and others), heavily edited, and often virtually rewritten, by musicologist Theodore Baker. Many of the works were also falsely attributed to composers (Pergolesi, Stradella, and Marcello in particular) who had nothing to do with the pieces in question. In spite of those editorial issues, these songs have figured prominently ever since in the early repertoire of most young singers. They have also been a staple of the concert platform for as long (and, truth be told, even longer), and remain so to this day. Today’s episode focuses on this repertoire as recorded by some of the greatest singers of the twentieth century. Some of these artists are Countermelody favorites (Claudia Muzio, Elly Ameling, Igor Gorin, Roberta Alexander, Irina Arkhipova, Gérard Souzay) but many others have, in spite of their stature, received relatively little exposure on the podcast (Luciano Pavarotti, Suzanne Danco, Roland Hayes, Georges Thill, Montserrat Caballé, John McCormack, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Nigel Rogers, and Beniamino Gigli, among many others presented in the episode). And let us not forget to raise a glass to Joan Sutherland, whose 99th birthday is observed today, and whose voice is the last one heard on the episode, in a rare 1960 radio recording, stunningly vocalized, that might surprise you. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 408. Rachel Yakar, Artiste Lyrique Française

  The great French soprano Rachel Yakar died on 24 June 2023 at the age of 87. As she frequently performed opposite our last subject, Swiss tenor Eric Tappy, this episode makes a suitable pendant to that one. Celebrated for her transcendent performances of Baroque music, (Monteverdi and the French Baroque in particular), Yakar was (like previous podcast subjects Eugene Holmes, Oralia Domínguez, Hana Janků, Gwendolyn Killebrew, and Teresa Żylis-Gara) also a member of ensemble of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg, with which company she performed for more than 25 years, singing a dizzying range of repertoire, everything from Mélisande to Arabella, Liù to Rusalka, Euridice to Desdemona. She also performed Donna Elvira and the Marschallin at Glyndebourne; and was an unforgettable Poppea in the Ponnelle-Harnoncourt Monteverdi cycle filmed for Unitel. In her prime she was also a frequent visitor to the recording studio, singing everything from Rameau to Varèse, Mozart to Messiaen, with conductors from Harnoncourt to Boulez, Leonhardt to Nagano. She was also a devoted song recitalist and in the later years of her career, she made two recordings of melodies for Virgin Records with the admirable support of her long-term accompanist Claude Lavoix. For the majority of this episode, I have chosen excerpts from both of those recordings, featuring the songs of Fauré and Hahn, which include settings of poets central to their output, including Paul Verlaine, Armand Silvestre, Léconte de Lisle, and Théodore de Banville, supplementing it with additional material in French by Ravel, Lekeu, Clérambault, Messiaen, and Poulenc. Yakar, who, like Régine Crespin and Nadine Denize, studied under the French dramatic soprano Germaine Lubin, was renowned for her faultless technique, her acting prowess, her peerless French diction, and her communicative artistic sensibility, traits of which are all in evidence in all of her recordings from the 1960s through the end of her career in the mid-1990s. Yakar was especially treasured by her colleagues, friends, and students for the warmth and effervescence of her personality, and her devotion to passing on her knowledge and experience to a younger generation of singers. May you delight in the delicacy, humor, precision, and pathos of one of the most prodigiously gifted and versatile vocal artists of her generation. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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