Susan Graham - Mozart & Gluck Arias ~ Il tenero momento Review

Susan Graham - Mozart & Gluck Arias ~ Il tenero momentox$5.50

(12 reviews)

Best Price: $5.50

The "tender moment" of this collection's title comes from a stunning scene in an opera Mozart wrote as a teenager, Lucio Silla. It refers to the heightening of sensitivity and expectation that love, above all else, instills. But the Mozart example (with which the album ends) might also be taken as a metonym for the way in which the most powerful emotions, including love in all its guises, from ardor to lament, can intensify the moment. It's a process that opera itself tries to replicate through the wonderful alchemy of music, text, and character. In her second recording for Erato (following the extraordinary Ned Rorem anthology), American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham focuses on the "tender moment" as depicted by Mozart and Gluck. These two masters of opera aren't often paired, though each in his highly distinct, individual way insisted on elevating the genre beyond the level of frivolous entertainment and display that the century they shared found so tempting. Graham's program of six scenes from each suggests some striking moments of common ground in terms of the larger classical aesthetic, though the success of the whole enterprise is mixed. Certainly, Graham makes a case for the radiant beauty of Mozart's opera seria writing (her own operatic debut was in Lucio Silla), which still tends to be undervalued--as though it were simply a case of the composer being enchained by excessive genre "conventions." There's a magical balance between form and content, substance and decoration in "Parto" from La Clemenza di Tito (notable enough for Antony Pay's melting basset clarinet obbligato), and in the lengthiest selection (the last one, from Lucio Silla), though Graham here exposes the instability of her lowest register.

But to whatever extent Mozart and Gluck might intersect in sensibility, the latter conjures a remarkably different universe when he depicts love's loss and abandon. Somehow the scenes from Iphigénie and, especially, Orphée et Eurydice (in its French version here) don't register as stylistically different enough and they lack that strange, altogether Gluckian combination of objective purity with emotional extremity. And as Mozart's adolescent Cherubino, the kind of intensity that Graham conveys so convincingly on stage comes across a tad too contrived. On disc alone, not all of the selections can capture the spell Graham typically casts in live performance through her combination of singing, "emotional intelligence," and stage presence. Still, it's an intelligent program, and Graham has proved to be a winning exponent of period performance style (as in 2000's superb Alicina). The match here with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a happy one. --Thomas May MPN: 85768 - UPC: 685738576821

An album that is very dear to my heart

By A3SWWXWV1WDZ68 on 2002-07-22

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is fabulous, expressive and colourful - you'd never want to hear this music on modern instruments again after hearing them! Susan Graham's voice is expressive and has much pathos - without ever becoming melodramatic.
The repertoire is well selected and there is a very tasteful blend of known and less well known arias. I hope that Ms Graham makes another CD with the OAE again soon! I could stand another disc like this one!

This disc is also the perfect disc to buy with the Cecilia Bartoli Gluck disc. Ms Bartoli tackles Gluck's earlier opera seria arias - while Ms Graham mainly delves into the later reform opera arias - as well as some Mozart. I cherish both discs.

Please consider this CD for your collection.

Sheer Class

By AVDZAWRNSUJT4 on 2001-03-27

There is very little to fault in the singing on this album - perhaps the odd perilously negotiated corner in the florid music (Orphee suffers perhaps most here) and a lack of complete security way below the stave are the only noticeable problems. Otherwise she produces long, seamless lines of real amplitude and shine most notably in "O Malheureuse Iphigenie". Generally these arias seem to work better than Orphee's, and perhaps that is a result of her stage experience in the former role. The Mozart is mostly excellent - Sesto's arias are aung with exemplary control, although on the other hand she sounds a little mature and feminine for Cherubino these days. Indeed, her voice has a distinct and striking feminine quality which sits oddly with the number of travesti roles she takes. The evidence perhaps suggests that she identifies better with female characters than with the men she plays (Octavian aside). I notice another reviewer suggests Ottavia which would indeed suit her wonderfully - and what about Vitellia?

The sound quality is superb, and the OAE are as ever responsive and meticulous in their period style. Harry Bicket, well known to Britich audiences for his Baroque repertoire, provides a rock solid and highly sensitive accompanist. A real treat, uniformly good with many moments of real excellence, and highly recommended.

Susan Graham - Mozart & Gluck Arias ~ Il tenero momento Reviews

Lovely Mezzo and Mozart

Truly wonderful!

An album that is very dear to my heart

Bland & Sleepy

Sheer Class