Vesselina Kasarova and her Bel Cantist Friends

RCA Red Seal is a blessed classical music label. In this CD compilation of 9 drop dead gorgeous bel canto opera duets and trio, we are treated to not just one but four of the most celebrated bel canto opera singers of recent years. Indeed, after listening to this CD even the opera snobs would be hard put to continue to ramble on about how "great singing died with the retirement of Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland." Not only can Vesselina Kasarova and her three featured colleagues here rival their predecessors when it comes to technical brilliance, they also bring their own style and personality to their musical interpretation that is different from the previous generation of great singers did.

Eva Mei is no Joan Sutherland and Vesselina Kasarova is no Marilyn Horne when it comes to the size of their voice (and neither Juan Diego Florez nor Ramon Vargas are anything like Alfredo Kraus or Giuseppe Di Stefano), but then bel canto singing is not about vocal heft and power a la German musical drama or Italian verismo opera. It is about finesse, flexibility, control, and elegance. All these qualities (plus an added bonus of good sung Italian diction) are so abundantly displayed on this CD that I sometimes feel the urge to pinch myself when listening to it just to make sure that I’m not just hallucinating my own projection of what an operatic musical nirvana would sound like onto the stereo.... Oh no, I haven’t been high on Lucy in the Sky with Diamond, but this CD sure has something as close to a Lyrical Singers Dreamcast as is commercially possible in our era where exclusive recording contract is the key to a classical singer’s means of financial security.

Aside from the pure pleasure of hearing great music, this CD is very valuable to me for a few key educational reasons... The first is in contrasting the compositional style of Gioacchino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini. Granted, only a single scene (#4-5) from a Bellini opera (I Capuleti e i Montecchi, a version of the story of Romeo and Juliet) is presented, but it is a long and dramatic one of the confrontation between Romeo and Tybalt that sums up Bellini's preference for very light orchestration to really focus on the security of the singing voice, his love for long legato lines that are full of melisma (long singing line sung in a single breath where a few syllables are spread over many notes that are seamlessly connected), and his supreme touch for elegance in disguise of a simple melody. Bellini wrote dastardly difficult music that sounds deceptively easy even as it tortures its singer... And he loved the high voices.

Rossini, on the other hand, is an entirely different composer. He preferred the deeper female voice and composed many of his heroic male lead roles for the coloratura contralto voice (after all, Rossini's wife, Isabella Colbran, was one of the best coloratura contraltos of her generation). Part of the reason for that is because the audience of Rossini's days were still very used to hearing a soprano castrato voice as the opera's heroic male leads... Castrating teenage boys to preserve their singing voice had been outlawed by then, and the closest sound to the soprano castrato is that of a coloratura contralto (or deep mezzo-soprano). Tancredi was Rossini's first successful foray into the serious opera (rather than his usual comic opera stomping ground), and it's leading role is one of the most technically and dramatically demanding. It is harder for the low voice to move as fast as the higher one, but Tancredi's contralto music requires just as much agility as does his beloved soprano Amenaide's... And the same goes for Cenerentola and Armida. Rossini also had a more ‘common’ touch in his melody (less noble or elegant than Bellini’s melody), and couldn’t get enough of flashy vocal pyrotechnic display... Where Bellini wrote long melisma, Rossini wrote patter (the opposite of melisma, in a patter one sings many syllables of the lyric on each note of the music). Where Bellini favored understatement with graceful connection between the high and low notes, Rossini would pile it on as much as the drama can handle, savoring acrobatic octave-jumping vocal leaps. Hearing these different styles so close together on the same CD really helps me appreciate both composers much more for their own virtues!

Another great use for this compilation CD is how it allows me to hear how Vesselina Kasarova’s voice has developed from 1996 (in tracks 2, 3, 7 from Tancredi) to 2003 (#6, the trio from Maometto II). Being a true mezzo-soprano with extended top notes, Vesselina Kasarova’s lower vocal register has became more imposing without compromising her trademark agility and dynamic control. She still sings like an instrumentalist (a pianist with a superb feel for improvisation) and her voice is still mesmerizingly clarinet-like, but with a thicker layer of fuzz over the very fine burgundy texture. More of a woodsy bassoon now than the woodsy clarinet of the mid 90's, if you will.

Aside from Armida and Cenerentola in tracks 1 & 9 on this CD, the rest of the tracks sees Kasarova in a male character (in fact, track 8 actually sees her singing a tenor part of Otello!), and sounding as amazingly androgenic as Calbo in Maometto II (from 2003) as as Romeo and Tancredi on the other tracks from the 90's. Her greatest strength, however, remains her uncanny ability to express just about any emotion in her voice, using subtle changes in coloration, dynamic, and rubato (lightening or darkening of the voice, singing volume, and subtly changing the length of the sung notes).

Incidentally, Ramon Vargas, the magnificent Mexican lyric (spinto?) tenor, is also featured on both the oldest and the newest tracks. His is still one of the most beautiful and regal lyric tenor voices on the planet. Like Kasarova’s, it has gained more weight and shifted a bit lower (they can still hit their high notes, but are a lot more comfortable in the middle range, I think). He is also one of the rare singers who can hang with Kasarova in terms of expressiveness.... a tall order!

The Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez was still a rising star when his tracks were recorded in 1999. He is now the reigning bel canto tenor king of his generation, thanks to a splendidly light and high tenor voice with jaw-dropping facility for coloratura. He is a virtuoso tenor par excellent who probably has as close a voice to the likes of Giovanni David (the light-voiced high tenor who originated many of the very high Bellini and Rossini leading male roles, including ‘Rodrigo’ in Rossini’s Otello) as anyone alive today. I’m afraid he doesn’t act as much with his voice as Kasarova and Vargas do, but with a voice and virtuoso capability like his, vocal drama is an added benefit easily overlooked in these virtuoso numbers.

Italian soprano Eva Mei has a rather pinched voice that took me a while to get used to, but once I did, she grew on me quite a bit. Her Amenaide, though not as expressive as Kasarova’s Tancredi, is more than adequately well sung and their voices blend very well in the two drop dead gorgeous epitomes of bel canto duets on tracks 2 and 7,... more so than Barbara Lavarian’s rather dark and heavily sung soprano as Anna in the Maometto II trio does.

Tracks 1, 8, & 9 are from the 1999 Rossini Arias & Duet CD conducted by Arthur Fagen. The sorceress Armida tries in vain to convince the knight Rinaldo to stay in love with her. Otello and Rodrigo are having a manly fight, and, on the final track, Prince Ramiro had never seen Cenerentola (Cinderella) before and is quite startled to find the ragged girl quite fetching.

Tracks 2, 3, & 7 are from the mesmerizing 1996 CD, Tancredi, conducted by Roberto Abbado. The knight Tancredi and Amenaide love each other, but keep getting their signals crossed. The duets have the same pathos... He is convinced that she has been unfaithful, but he'll save her or die trying anyway (the first is sung before he goes off to duel with her accuser, and the latter before he goes off to fight their war enemy). What's the girl to do but spends the entire opera being a weepy victim of misunderstandings?

Tracks 4 & 5 are from the 1998 CD, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, conducted by Roberto Abbado. Romeo enters a deserted courtyard expecting to meet with his beloved Giulietta, but his romantic rival Tebaldo shows up instead. Lots of insulting and spitting, but just before they can chop each other's head off, a funeral procession passes by proclaiming Giulietta's death.

Track 6 is from RCA Red Seal’s 2003 Ramon Vargas & Friends CD conducted by Vjekoslav Sutej. Erisse (Vargas) wants his daughter, Anna (Lavarian), to marry Calbo (Kasarova), but she loves another man and doesn't want to.

VESSELINA KASAROVA (mezzo-soprano)
with Eva Mei (soprano), Barbara Lavarian (soprano), Juan Diego Florez (tenor), & Ramon Vargas (tenor)
1. ROSSINI: Armida: Amor, possente nome / Vacilla a quegli accenti (as Armida with Juan Diego Florez )
2. ROSSINI: Tancredi: L'aura che intorno spiri (as Tancredi with Eva Mei)
3. ROSSINI: Tancredi: M'abbraccia, Argirio (with Ramon Vargas)
4. BELLINI: I Capuleti e i Montecchi: Deserto e il luogo (as Romeo with Ramon Vargas)
5. Arresta. Qual mesto suon echeggia?
6. ROSSINI: Maometto II: Trio - In questi estremi istanti (as Calbo with Ramon Vargas & Barbara Lavarian)
7. ROSSINI: Tancredi: Lasciami: non t'ascolto/ Ah come mai quell anima? (with Eva Mei)
8. ROSSINI: Otello: Ah, vieni, nel tuo sangue (as Otello with Juan Diego Florez )
9. ROSSINI: La cenerentola: Tutto è deserto/ Una volta c'era/ Un soave non so che (as Angelina (Cinderella) with Juan Diego Florez)

Only 9 tracks, but they are all ‘action-packed’ and, aside from the 4:24 minutes Malibran version of the Otello-Rodrigo duet, quite long and extremely well executed. If you don’t already own Kasarova’s full length opera CDs of ‘Tancredi’, ‘I Capuleti e i Montecchi’, and ‘La Cenerentola’, then this compilation CD is a good cheat recording to buy to get a good glimpse of what you have been missing! The trio from Maometto II is enough of a treat all by itself to compel me (who own all commercially available recordings of Kasarova... and a bit more) to buy this CD. It is vintage Rossini at his most ‘Bellini’.... a marvelous piece of understated virtuoso trio that tells more story than it dazzles (and it dazzles a lot!). All hard-core fans of bel canto opera simply must have all of the CDs whose tracks this compilation extracts from.... though if, like me, you are experiencing the post-holidays blue from over-spending, then this CD is a great consolation prize for you.

I would even say that even opera novice would find this CD a great introduction to the bel canto opera repertoire as well... with a caution that most of the tracks come with lead-in sung speech, so you must be patient on your first listen-through because the actual ‘meat’ of these number doesn't come until after a minute or two into the tracks.

1 CD. Play-time: 72:16 minutes. The thin booklet contains track list (identifying which singer is singing which role) and Jügen Kesting’s commentary on Rossini’s choice of using the low but agile female voice for his leading male roles as he lamented the demise of the castrati (male virtuoso singers who were castrated in order to preserve their soprano singing voice), and on Kasarova’s singing. No printed libretto or track-synopsis given.

For a glimpse of the kind of music included in this CD, try:

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlQSZTjLz-k: the trio from Maometto II (Track 6)
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGH3mkcYxfk : the 'meat' of what you'd hear in Track 7, Lasciami: non t'ascolto!/ Ah come mai quell'anima? sung by Vesselina Kasarova (Tancredi) & Edita Gruberova (Amenaide)
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDjiEtw4Zg : Ramiro-Cenerentola duet as on Track 9, sung by Francisco Araiza (Ramiro) & Vesselina Kasarova (Cenerentola)

More reviews of Kasarova:

CDs: Suter: Le laudi di San Francesco (1991), French Song Cycles (1995), A Portrait (1996), Lied-Duett/Wir Schwestern zwei, (with E Gruberova) (1996), Mozart Arias (1997), Rossini Arias & Duets (1999), German Lieder (2000), Love Entranced (French Opera Arias) (2002), Bulgarian Soul (2003), The Magic of Kasarova (2004), Bel Canto Duets (With Vargas, Mei, Florez)(2005), Das Bayerische Staatsoper: 1997-2005 (2006), Belle Nuit (2008), Sento brillar (2008).

Opera CDs: Alcina (Munich 2005), Beatrice di Tenda (Vienna 1992), I Capuleti e i Montecchi, La Cenerentola (Munich 2005), La clemenza di Tito (Munich 2006), Dom Sébastien (ROH 2005), La Favorite (Munich 2000), Mitridate (Salzburg 1997), Oberon, Tancredi, Werther

Opera DVDs: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Zürich 2001), La belle Hélène (Zürich 1997), Berlin Opera Night 2003, La clemenza di Tito (Salzburg 2003), La clemenza di Tito (Zürich 2005), La damnation de Faust (Salzburg 1999), Orphée et Eurydice (Munich 2005), Pique Dame/Queen of Spade (Vienna 1992), Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Zürich 2002), Der Rosenkavalier (Zürich 2004)
Live Performance: Dom Sébastian at Carnegie Hall 2006

Great Music to Play While: Listening