|
|||
|
Opera News
February 1, 1992 Salome suits Giuseppe Sinopoli perfectly.... His youthful twosome of Cheryl Studer and Bryn Terfel gives his reading enormous life. STRAUSS: Salome
Depravity is doing booming business, with three Salome recordings in hand and a fourth (starring Jessye Norman) just around the next cistern. There is one standout performance here: that of Giuseppe Sinopoli. He has been a wayward conductor of some music, but Salome suits him perfectly. He has the Deutsche Oper Berlin orchestra playing like the Philharmonic, with fascinating coloristic sense, painting gradations from soft legato to forceful strength, in addition controlling a constant buildup of tension. Next to his reading, Mehta's strong but more monochromatic traversal with the Berlin Philharmonic sounds loudly pale. Sinopoli's youthful twosome of Cheryl Studer and Bryn Terfel gives his reading enormous life. Studer has yet to identify with the title role, lacking that willful intensity necessary, and she needs to articulate the text with greater emphasis, but the spring in the voice counts for a great deal. Terfel's vibrant Jochanaan, bursting with energy rather than cold fanaticism, makes a highly acceptable alternate reading (Weikl in the Sony recording is more traditional). The only disappointment comes with Leonie Rysanek's Herodias: she never has been a remarkable phonographic artist, in the way she is a theater artist, and this role seems to lie awkwardly for her. She does not project as individual a character as Brigitte Fassbaender does for Sony -- here is a Herodias. The two Herodes are both Mimes rather than spinto tenors (this is normal today); of them, Horst Hiestermann (DG), though querulous of voice, is marginally more lasciviously depraved. DG's is the slightly better secondary cast. Which brings us to Sony's heroine, Eva Marton. Replete with intensity and drive, she knows what Salome is all about, but the current state of her voice is anything but youthful and anything but beautiful -- indeed, for anyone but a Marton fan it is all too often a schreckliche Geschrei. The third recording is not really competitive, as it is a performance of the French Salomé. Strauss and the writer Romain Rolland created this version shortly after the premiere in Dresden, fitting it to Oscar Wilde's text, which was written in French. The shift necessitated Strauss' changing some note values and pitches. Later, a "standard" French edition was created, following the original score, and the Strauss- Rolland adaptation disappeared, to be rediscovered only a few years ago. For musicological and archival purposes this recording is important. It is also a perfectly good performance, without any special distinction. Nagano's conducting is broad -- at times underpowered, but effective. Karen Huffstodt as Salomé is similarly effective, but she cannot enunciate the text well and is weak rhythmically. José van Dam stands out as Iokanaan, although this is not really his sort of role. - P.J.S.
| |||