Countermelody

• Episode 350. Young Singers I Admire

  Today we celebrate 350 episodes of Countermelody since the inception of the podcast in the fall of 2019. Given that this is a momentous occasion (probably mostly to me, just for sticking with this thing!), I wanted to do something special today. For some time I have been promising an episode on Young Singers I Admire. This is different than the usual Countermelody fare because I almost always focus on great singers of the past. The world of the “opera singer” is very different today than when I was trying to carve out a professional career as a countertenor more than 30 years ago. I would say the huge difference is the way that social media has become such a prominent tool in shaping and maintaining a career. Even today, however, it is possible to do both of these things, to be a singer primarily focused on her technique and expressing the integrity of the music, as well as focusing on their marketing and their identity, whether that be queerness, Blackness, glamour, physical fitness, or whatever. Every single singer I feature today displays a solid and viable vocal technique and a profound connection to the music that they are singing while also, in most cases, deftly managing their online presence. Listen to these young singers and see if you don’t agree: sopranos Lisette Oropesa, Sabine Devieilhe, Nicole Car, and Vera-Lotte Böcker; contralto Jasmin White; mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson; baritone Huw Montague Rendall; and countertenor Maayan Licht. Midway through constructing this episode, I realized that I had enough material for two episodes, so a pendant to this episode will be published next Easter Monday. It thrills me to celebrate these young artists: all possessors of gorgeous voices, fine technique, superb communicative powers, and a much, much better sense of entrepreneurship than I ever had! 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 journalist 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 349. Lenten Melody

  I’ve already done a Lententide episode devoted to contraltos singing the music of Bach, but it seemed to me that in the upheaval of today’s vengeful and war-hungry world, we could use another contemplative episode to provide us with meditative (and even tuneful!) music to calm our spirits. The tunefulness comes especially from recordings of favorite religious music by Gounod, Franck, and other 19th-century French composers sung by Camille Maurane, Marcel Journet, Richard Verreau, and Françoise Pollet. Also included are a live excerpt from Parsifal with Jon Vickers and Hans Knappertsbusch; the miraculous yet voiceless Hugues Cuénod performing an excerpt from the first of Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres; the unsung German-British soprano Ilse Wolf in a live performance of the Bach Johannes-Passion conducted by Pablo Casals; Gundula Janowitz in a searing but brief aria from Mendelssohn’s Paulus; excerpts from settings of the Stabat Maters of Haydn and Dvorák, sung by Alfreda Hodgson, Sena Jurinac, and Heinz Hoppe; the original version of Hendrik Andriessen’s exquisite Miroir de Peine cycle for voice and organ featuring our beloved Elly Ameling; and Jennie Tourel in an excerpt from her ultra-rare recording of Hindemith’s Das Marienleben preceded by Lotte Lehmanns’s recitation of the same Rilke poem. The episode begins and ends with realizations by Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett of Baroque masters Henry Purcell and Pelham Humfrey sung, respectively, by Peter Pears and John Shirley-Quirk. 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 journalist 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 348. Rescue Mission II

  After I post a Countermelody episode on a cherished singer, my relationship with these artists continues: one of those manifestataions is that I never stop seeking out rare and unusual recordings featuring those singers. This results in a grab-bag of fascinating and often obscure material that is simply too good not to share with my listeners. Today I present you with the second episode of such genre, which I have collectively dubbed “Rescue Mission.” On this episode I feature singers you’ve heard on the podcast over the course of the past several weeks and months, including, among many others, Janet Baker, Oralia Domínguez, Eugene Holmes, Ellabelle Davis, Gilda Cruz-Romo, Benjamin Luxon, Mara Coleva, Hugo Hasslo, Margaret Marshall, Gloria Davy, and Mady Mesplé, performing work by Handel, Verdi, Weill, Bach, Brahms, Boito, and Mozart. The episode concludes with Eleanor Steber (because, as I affirmed laast week, you can never have enough of her), in a 1949 performance of “Ah, Perfido!” that will have you picking your dislocated jaw up off the floor. Also expect shout-outs to friends of the podcast, old and new, as well as a certain amount of political snippiness! 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 journalist 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 347. Will the Real Eleanor Steber Please St/And Up?

  Because there is no such thing as too much Eleanor Steber, today’s episode once again features the prodigiously gifted singer, in my opinion the greatest soprano the United States has ever produced, singing a dizzying range of material, most of it recorded live between the years 1958 and 1979. These recordings were nearly all private releases on Steber’s own record labels.. First, ST/AND Records, which she formed with her second husband Gordon Andrews, and which between 1960 and 1962 produced approximately fifteen LPs, all but one of them featuring Steber. Second, recordings released under the aegis of the Eleanor Steber Music Foundation, which she formed in 1973 and which released a few choice live recordings of Steber’s late career recitals. The material ranges from selections from the Christian Science Hymnal, piously presented; sentimental ballads, tackily arranged; Bach and Mozart arias; art songs by Rorem, Barber, Britten, Debussy, Berg, and Beethoven; and opera arias from I Puritani, Der Freischütz, Giulio Cesare, and Tosca, the last performed at her campy Live at the Continental Baths concert in October 1973. Though as Steber grew older, her voice occasionally sounded blowsy, on the vast majority of these recordings she sounds stunningly good. And no matter what repertoire she was singing, her impeccable technique and pristine musicianship remained intact throughout. Much of source material from which these performances stem is exceedingly rare, and for the most part difficult and costly to obtain. So in my role as supreme Steber groupie, I am honored and thrilled to share these recordings, all of them from my own personal collection. 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 journalist 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 346. Olive Middleton and La Puma (Alternate Universe Bel Canto)

  Hello, Campers! Once again it is April Fool’s Day, which means that here at Countermelody, we’re doing another in my “Alternate Universe Bel Canto” series. This year the featured diva is Olive Middleton, still remembered by a certain kind of opera lover who adores fearless singers who throw caution, technique, and discretion to the winds. In the case of Middleton, she became, late in life, the lead soprano of the La Puma Opera Company (officially titled the La Puma Opera Workshop), where she fearlessly undertook the most challenging soprano roles of the operatic repertoire. Today, as last year, I am joined by my friend the redoubtable Thomas Bagwell, whose love of bad taste and cringe-worthy artistic expression surpasses even mine. We have a rollicking conversation about Middleton, interspersed with choice live selections from La Puma in the 1960s. Along the way, we discuss the “so bad it’s good” phenomenon and its manifestations in film, on stage, and on the printed page, including an abominably bad poem about Olive that Thomas specifically for this episode. In the end, we arrive at many conclusions, first and foremost that singers like Middleton were motivated, in the words of John Ardoin, “a love for singing, a love for music, a love for her audience. She disperses this primary element in unstinting fashion, sharing with her public a devotion to and pursuit of art that is surely without parallel.” If you have not yet experienced the force of nature (and mind over matter) that is Olive Middleton, you are in for a listening experience like none you have ever had! 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 journalist 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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