DECEMBER 1995
POWER AND POISE
Built on the queenly lines of a battleship, the British
soprano Jane Eaglen is under sail in dangerous waters. She intends to
concentrate on several roles that, in her phrase, "feel absolutely right in
every part of me." The list? The bel canto touchstone Norma, unchaste Druid
priestess in Bellini's opera of that name; Wagner's warrior maiden
Brünnhilde, redeemer of the universe in the Ring cycle; Wagner's
sorceress Isolde, expiring in cosmic ecstasies for love of her Tristan;
Mozart's Donna Anna, victim of attempted rape, who parades through Don
Giovanni brooding on revenge ("like castor oil for the voice," says
Eaglen, "not particularly pleasant, but necessary!"). True, all these parts
were written for a commanding instrument. But the gale-force power and
long-haul stamina that Wagner demands rarely coincide with the poise and
superior maneuverability that are indispensable for Mozart and bel canto.
Brave divas of the past have set their sights on all these targets; none has
succeeded equally with each. Yet Eaglen might. Her mettle revives memories of
the immortal Wagnerian Birgit Nilsson; her coloratura bears comparison with
that of major bel cantists; and her personality--cheerful, unpretentious, and
self-assured offstage--connects directly with primal passions. Eaglen's Norma
may be heard on a recording under Riccardo Muti (EMI) or live in concert with
Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall on December 11 (212-799-1982).
Next month the soprano makes her Metropolitan Opera debut as Donna Anna
(January 10, 13, and 18; 212-362-6000). In March, Eaglen's Brünnhilde
will light up the Lyric Opera of Chicago's newly forged Ring under
Zubin Mehta (312-332-2244).
A diva of many talents
Photo: Courtesy of IMG Artists
Ensemble Project Ars Nova, or P.A.N., specializes in the
"new art" from which it takes its name: the intricate polyphony that first
emerged in the early fourteenth century. Most listeners today classify such
music as ancient, but to P.A.N.'s singers and instrumentalists, the passions
and anxieties it captures resemble those of our own millenarian age. Perhaps
to press that point, P.A.N. has recently released a fascinating album called
Unseen Rain (New Albion), consisting of new music steeped in the
technique and aesthetics of new music 600 years old. The composer is Robert
Kyr. From December 1 to 12 the ensemble visits Pittsburgh; Caldwell, Idaho;
Moscow, Idaho; College Park, Maryland; Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.; and
Boston. For more information see local listings.
P.A.N.'s Unseen Rain
Cover artwork courtesy of New Albion, San Francisco
Some music is stale before the composer sets down the
last double bar. Some springs back newborn with every hearing. Time has yet
to catch up with the scores of Béla Bartók, who died a half
century ago this year. In observance of the milestone, the Emerson Quartet
has been celebrating the anniversary on three continents with marathon
concerts of the composer's six string quartets. The grand finale is set for
December 3 at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, in New York (212-721-6500).
Played straight through, the music clocks in at two and a half hours. Long,
one may grant, but not Herculean--until one factors in not only the technical
terrors but above all the phenomenal imaginative demands. Everywhere (and
especially in the quartets), Bartók conjures up the sense of life
contained, like a bullfrog in a jar or bees in a hive or whatever creature it
is that burrows and riots inside a Mexican jumping bean. Exotic shreds
(gypsy? Egyptian?) float or whiz by. Vast interstellar emotional and
aesthetic spaces are leapt in no time. Here, hardly sounded, a sick little
music-box tune is wiped out by some mad frenzy. There a hero's coffin passes
by torchlight. Plunks, glides, furious skittering, harmonies suspended like a
midnight sun . . . the musical substance contains nothing pictorial, yet the
quartets are a magic lantern, lighting up the receptive mind with images as
fleeting, sulfur-dusted, and inextinguishable as Goya's nightmare
Caprichos. The artists of the Emerson Quartet have proved themselves
masters of Bartók's fantastic soundscape in a Grammy-winning album on
Deutsche Grammophon. In real time the adventure could well prove still more
intense.
A moment outside the concert hall
Photo: Werner Neumeister
