ELINA GARANCA: Mozart Opera & Concert Arias

Recorded at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria in 2005, this is an ambitious program of 10 challenging arias of Wolfgang Mozart sung by the young Latvian star mezzo soprano Elina Garanca.

Elina Garanca is the ‘it girl’ among the A-list operatic lyric mezzo soprani today. It is a well earned rank. She has one of the most beautiful, dark, and full-bodied mezzo soprano voices on the planet. It is a dusky brown-ish voice of unpolished wood texture that is very uniquely hers. And for the size of it (she is a spinto with enough power to make one wonder if she will develop into a Verdi singer later on), it is remarkably agile as well. This singer has superb command of her voice and a beautiful singing technique that produces effortless legato line from top to bottom. She makes all these obnoxiously difficult music (highly delicate and extremely exposed vocal writing) sounds absurdly easy.

So easy they ALL sound, that the 10 arias sound as if they were sung by just a single character.... This is not necessarily a good thing, in my opinion, since the 9 characters who sing them are of quite different temperaments. I have a hard time distinguishing Ramiro (the hot-blooded young lad who sings tracks 4 & 7) from Fiordiligi (the cool-headed stable young lady who sings track 10), or from her sister Dorabella (the volcanically bubble-headed young chantess of track 8). They all sound like the same person!

So naturally, the tracks that are sung by the operatic characters that are either of similar temperament as the singer is (sane and serious) or aren't showing more than one side of their personality in the aria being sung (Tracks 1, 4, 5, 7, 10), are the more emotionally satisfying numbers in this recitals. Tracks #2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, which are sung by more complex (or a bit batty/ requiring more depth) characters, sound awkward and sometimes boring. Maestro Louis Langrée and the Camerata Salzburg provides a delightfully engaging orchestral accompaniment (though the orchestra’s expressiveness contrasts Frau Garanca’s lack of dramatic elasticity too much at times).

This CD contains 10 relatively rarely heard numbers. Most of the songs requires a voice approaching 3 octaves in range (and, unlike in pop-music, in opera we only count the notes that the voice can sing all the vowel sounds with, in firm control, and loudly enough to be heard unamplified over a full orchestra. Notes that can be reached only by sheer screeching don’t count). It probably isn’t stuff for those who are new to opera, since most of these songs are extended scenes from serious works (track 6 alone is nearly 15 minutes long), and not all that catchy.... especially when done with this serious a voice.

Elina Garanca (mezzo soprano), Frank Braley (piano), Louis Langrée / Camerata Salzburg

TRACKS:
1. Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia (K.582)
2. La clemenza di Tito: Deh, se piacer mi vuoi
3. Basta, vincesti/ Ah, non lasciarmi (K.486a)

Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia l’affanno del mio bene? (Who knows, who know, what may be troubling my beloved?), asks Lucilia in Track 1. She is agitating about her lover’s apparent doubt of her fidelity, and asks the gods to help him return to his senses. This is fresh and very well sung (though perhaps the voice could be lightened a bit to sound more feminine), and provides a very fine start to the recital.

While Madama Lucilia must asks the divine third party to help absolve her lover’s doubts, the much more confident Princess Vitellia takes it upon herself to sing Track 2 directly to her lover, Sesto, commanding him to quit hesitating and to carry out her wishes in assassinating his childhood friend and emperor, Tito (Titus Vespasiano), and installing her as empress instead.

Vitellia is a manipulative woman who knows when to shout, when to sweet talk, and when to taunt in order to get Sesto to do what she wants. And in this 2 part rondo, she is to first soften him with her sweetly feminine pleading (Deh se piace mi vuoi lascia I sospetti tuoi ... If you want to please me, then cast aside your suspicions) and then spends the fast 2nd movement (chi ciecamente crede impegna a serbar fede ... He who believes blindly inspires faith in others) both goading her beleaguered lover and congratulating herself for having such a tight hold over him. But the darn thing is.... the dark voice used by Frau Garanca here is so lacking in the required sweet deviousness that it obliterates any femme fatale quality of the first section. She fares better in the second part, however, using her imposing voice effectively in conveying Vitellia’s superiority complex. Though the aria is less effective as a whole because the 2 parts show the same side of Vitellia instead of at least 2 distinct ones.

Track 3, is a long-ish scene of Didone (Queen Dido of Carthage)’s abandonment by Anneas. She is a desperately unhappy woman who spends 6 ½ minutes singing about how she can’t live without her man.... and after this relentless bout of monotonous whining, as done here, I would just hand her a loaded pistol by the 3 minutes mark and beg her to just get it all over with so we could get to the next scene. It is a beautiful and very musical lament, but I can only take so much of it at one setting without any change in mood.

4. La finta giardiniera: Va pure ad altri
5. Alma grande e nobil core (K.578)
6. Misero me / Misero pargoletto (K.77)
7. La finta giardiniera: Se l’augellin sen fugge

La finta giardiniera (The Fake Gardener) is an early Mozart opera that is not often performed these days due to absurdity of its plot (almost impossible to stage in a coherent manner). The opera contains some seriously beautiful music, however. Tracks # 7 and # 4 are very well suited to Frau Garanca’s voice and serious temperament. Ramiro (a formerly soprano castrato role) spends most of the opera in various states of wretchedness over being romantically rejected by Arminda.

The short Track 4 sees him in an angry and defiance state of ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore’ kind of number, while Track 7 sees him in a more wretched long-suffering mode, declaring that he is bound to love Arminda until the day he dies. Both moods are well served by this solid and steady dark voice... I think a more drama-oriented singer can add more layers to the character of Ramiro (the music sure has room for it), but that this doesn’t happen here doesn’t hurt, considering the one-dimensional way he is usually portrayed on staged.

The two concert arias that separate them, however, are more diversely performed. Alma grande (Track 5)’s virtuosic burst of noble indignity fits Frau Garanca’s temperament and style very well and is the most engaging number of this recital for me. Track 6, a marathon of a scene from Metastasio’s Demofoonte where Timante leaves no stone unturned in his 14:41 minutes long exploration of the desolated state of his soul, the uncertain state of his relationships, and the dim prospect of his forbidden marriage, poses a more sticky problem for the singer’s limited dramatic capacity. This is the number where she is least served by the orchestra’s superior expressivity.

One can hear the in the many changes in dynamic and colors of the orchestral accompaniment (as light as it is compared a Strauss or a Wagner orchestra) how this number should tear the listeners to pieces as Timante reminisces, laments, and indulges in pessimism.... with intervening outbursts of horrors and trepidations. Even though he is by himself, Timante has an audience in this scene.... himself. This is an introspective song, with sporadic outbursts that may be audible to eave-droppers. But the way this is sung, the introspective part is lost.... and yet she doesn’t seem to have a specific audience in mind for Timante’s ranting and raving. Without that, the song soon becomes a glorified piece of background music that fails to hold my attention. The technical florid parts are well done, but no coherent story is told by them.

8. Cosi fan tutte: Ah, scorstati / Smanie implacabili
9. Ch’io mi scordi di te?/ Non temer, amato bene (K.505)
10. Cosi fan tutte: Temerari/ Come scoglio

Tracks 8 and 10 from Cosi fan tutte are sung by two different sisters who found themselves in the same position. I have big problem with the way this singer sings Dorabella’s ‘Smanie implacabili (#8),’ since this character is a fickle girl who, in this song, is expressing a preposterous outburst of emotion. It is intended, half-heartedly, to bluff her weary audience of a sister and a ‘seen it all’ maid into believing that she is so committed to her beloved Ferrando that she would rather die than to live without him (and if it is done correctly, nobody with a working neuron is going to fall for it even for a second). In this rendition, she sounds more like a steady and serious girl who is trying to sound like she doesn’t care.... which is the complete opposite of what the number should convince me of (and is once again upstaged by the orchestra that is more adept at sonic winking and eyes-rolling than she is).

But of course, the steady and serious characters of Frau Garanca serves her better as Fiordiligi, the steady and more balanced sister, who claims (in #10) that she will, like a rock, stand firm and immovable against the wind and the storms in her faithfulness to her dear Guglielmo. The lyric is close to Paul Simon’s I am a Rock, but the music is of a Mozartian war march (though the lack of the timpani in the orchestral accompaniment allows her to not warp into Xena the Warrior Princess right in the middle of a comic opera). If only the character’s second aria isn’t such a soprano number with wide vocal leaps, I can really entertain a dream of hearing this singer as Fiordiligi on-stage, instead of as the not fickle enough Dorabella (whose music was also written for a soprano, but has a range that is more manageable by a mezzo).

The sad thing for me is, #9 (Ch’io mi scordi di te?/ Non temer amato bene), my all time favorite Mozart concert aria (even trumping the gorgeous soprano aria ’Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio (K.418)’), is the biggest let down of this recital. This is a concerto-style duet between the soprano voice and the solo piano (with a very light orchestral accompaniment) that should put the listeners in the middle of a very engaging conversation between the 2 instruments. It is written for insertion into Act II of the opera Idomeneo, where Idamante sings the solo lead-in recitative (Ch’io mi scoredi di te? That I am to forget you?), refutes Ilia’s plea for him to reject her and obey his father’s will, and then spends the main aria (Non temer amato bene Fear not, dear love) trying to convince her of his love.

Alas, they seem to be speaking from two different parallel universe. The pianist, Frank Braley, is quite sensitive and eagerly melts and pleads as the imagined voice of Princess Ilia, while Frau Garanca’s Idamante seems absorbed in being chivalrous and masculine... and pays scant attention to what the piano is singing. This Idamante seems more in love with his own vision of being in love rather than with the girl, which doesn't help further the romantic mood of this number. The lack of effective interplay/chemistry between the 2 soloists is fatal to this musical style, and I am bored to tears by the end of the first phrase of the main aria.... with a good 4 minutes to go!

To cap it all up, this recital provides a good showcase for the magnificent voice and technical prowess of Elina Garanca. It also shows that, at age 30, she still has quite a long way to go in learning to become someone else of distinctly different personality when she sings. She is up to all of Mozart’s technical demands, but she isn’t yet up to his theatrical needs.

For all the preconceptions of Mozart being a lyric composer who writes ‘happy’ music, I think he is actually the most dramatically demanding of all opera composers. His melodies are deceptively simple, but when sung with the right nuance and attitudes, they are the most emotionally revealing in their sheer expressive quality. When they aren’t done expressively; however, they can sound downright pretentiously boring... as some of the tracks here are. If you are more inclined toward a beautiful voice with fine technical polish and not as much toward the dramatically convincing one, however, this is a great CD to purchase. There aren’t many voices that are as arrestingly attractive as this one is.

1 CD, All arias sung in Italian. Booklet includes track list, note on the numbers included, and libretto in German, English, Italian, and French.

If you are interested in Mozart’s opera, you might enjoy:
Recital CD: Edita Gruberova: Mozart Concert Arias, Vesselina Kasarova: Mozart Arias, The Mozart Album (Netrebko, Garanca, Quarsthoff (by Virtuelle2)

Opera CD: La clemenza di Tito (P Steinberg 2006), Mitridate (R Norrington 1997), Die Zauberflöte (C Abbado 2005)

Opera DVD: Ascanio in Alba, Bastien und Bastienne/Der Schauspieldirektor, La clemenza di Tito (Salzburg 2003), Cosi fan tutte (Harnoncourt/Ponnelle film), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Salzburg 1998), Don Giovanni (Met), La finta giardiniera (Salzburg 2006), La finta semplice (Salzburg 2006), Idomeneo (Salzburg 2006), Idomeneo (Met 1982), Lucio Silla (Salzburg 2006), Le nozze di Figaro (Glynebourne 1994) by Virtuelle2, Die Zauberflöte (ROH 2000)

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Getting ready to go out