Domingo & Co.

BIG-NAME musicians make big-time recordings, and they've been churning them out lately. We'll examine a few of them, starting with the biggest one of them all: Placido Domingo's Tristan und Isolde.

But he's just the tenor, isn't he? Why is it Domingo's? Because when he is involved in something, it's his, period. I should also note that this recording is billed as kind of the last hurrah--not so much of Domingo as of opera recordings made in studios. The market is glutted, as the standard repertory has been recorded many times over. And the costs are prohibitive--thanks largely to union unreasonableness. But some of us think the standard repertory should be recorded in every era, if at all swingable. Why? Because in every era, there are singers worth recording, in the important roles. For example, you would want Olga Borodina's Carmen, wouldn't you? No one would have to throw away his Conchita Supervia (or Rise Stevens, or Maria Callas).

Placido Domingo began singing a lot of Wagner in the 1980s, when he was in his middle or late forties--something like that. His age is one of the great mysteries in the music business. Sources official and un- are all over the map, but the consensus is that Domingo's about 65. For the last ten years or so, I've called him "the ageless Spaniard," and although that phrase is less true than it was even three years ago, it still more or less holds up. Domingo is a marvel of vocal longevity (particularly for a tenor). And to put a Tristan on CD crowns a career.

Domingo added something fairly new to Wagner singing: Here was a creamy lyric tenor--a Rodolfo (La Boheme), even an Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor--suddenly a Lohengrin, a Tannhauser, a Siegmund (in Die Walkure). Sure, he had begun his career as a baritone--like his great Wagnerian predecessor Lauritz Melchior--but he was very much a tenor. And he brought the qualities of creamy lyricism, even of bel canto, to Wagner. Yes, he crooned a little bit (which ain't good)--but at least he didn't bark.

And although his German started out ... rather Spanish, let's say, it improved to the point of respectability. In fact, his Spanishness may be more pronounced in his Italian, precisely because of the similarity between those two languages. (Spanish singers, in my experience, try less hard to conform.)

So Domingo climbed up the Wagnerian ladder all the way to Tristan, granddaddy of the tenor roles. It is one he has never performed onstage, and never will, but he can certainly handle it in the studio--with all of its tricks--and EMI decided to record him. His Isolde is not Deborah Voigt, the soprano with whom he recorded some Wagner duets (including the great love duet from Tristan). (This recording is also on EMI.) It's Nina Stemme, a Swede who gained notoriety when she appeared stunningly naked at Salzburg. Stemme is certainly a worthy Isolde, and a worthy Wagnerian all around. But I still would have voted for Voigt (who in any case has her own Tristan und Isolde out--with the conductor Christian Thielemann, on Deutsche Grammophon).

Domingo's conductor is Antonio Pappano, maestro of Covent Garden, and one of the best opera conductors in the world. One of the better symphonic conductors, as well. As for the cast below the title roles, EMI didn't skimp: The Young Seaman--a minor part--is a virtual superstar, the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon (a Domingo protege). The Shepherd is Ian Bostridge. Rene Pape is King Mark, which is appropriate--or desirable--considering that he is the King Mark of our time. Olaf Bar makes a solid Kurwenal.

The only surprising cast choice is the Japanese mezzo Mihoko Fujimura for Brangane, and she fills the bill.

You will not get a thorough review here, but I will ask and answer an important question: Was it too late? Was it too late to capture Domingo in this great and demanding role? No, not really. He is recognizably himself, even if he's in autumn. He sings with his usual excellence, and also his usual mannerisms, but at least these aren't worsening with time. This is a valuable recording--not redundant, not wasteful. The sort of recording Domingo, and his public, deserve.

Evgeny Kissin, the Russian virtuoso, has put out a new album---of Russian virtuosic music. Well, not all of it is that way: The pianist begins with some early preludes of Scriabin, not very well known. These are miniatures, written before the composer had become the Scriabin we know. Kissin plays them with his customary self-possession.

He moves on to a sonata by Scriabin, but, again, an early and little-known one: No. 3 in F-sharp minor, Op. 23. As you can imagine, Kissin approaches the sonata with boldness, but he also does some of his trademark thumping. The second movement, Allegretto, doesn't have very much "etto" in it (although, to be sure, this is as much Scriabin's fault as Kissin's). And in the Andante, many of Kissin's phrases are far too big and blunt. But he conquers the final movement--Presto con fuoco--which is arresting, gripping, in the Russian tradition.

This is not Scriabin's best piece, but how nice of Kissin to resurrect it.

He also resurrects a piece by Nikolai Medtner, beloved by pianists in generations past. This is the Sonata Reminiscenza, part of the Forgotten Melodies (appropriately enough). Kissin loves to explore this old-fashioned literature, and this is why so many of us call him a "throwback" (which is no insult, believe me). Kissin thumps his way through some of the Sonata Reminiscenza, but he also shapes it well, which is fortunate, because it's a long, episodic, unwieldy piece. Reminiscences often meander.

The disc--courtesy of RCA Red Seal--ends with Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrouchka. Of this, we can be sure: All the notes are there. But are they musical? Kissin tends to bludgeon the keyboard, and this performance could use more wit, scintillation, and flair. Nearly wrecking the final movement--"La Semaine grasse"--is that thumping, thudding quality. Luckily, the market is "glutted" with exemplary Petrouchkas.

Return, now, to Debbie Voigt: Her latest album is of American song, exploring five different composers, one of them living. The album, from EMI, is called All My Heart, but ignore the dorky title: Record companies think that such titles sell. I suppose one should bow to their superior expertise, and experience.

Voigt is a big, splashy opera star, but she is also an effective recitalist, as you can hear on this album. In American song, she is clean, natural, direct, unaffected. One benefit is that she sings American songs in American English. But doesn't every American singer? You'd be surprised. (Incidentally, I once watched Debbie Voigt in a master class trying to get an American student--in a Barber song--to sing the syllables in an American, not a British or vaguely Continental, way.)

On this new album, she begins with a group of Charles Ives, replete with his strange rhythms, and strange sound combinations. Voigt's is a big voice--one of the biggest on the scene--but she scales down for these small songs. No mere diva, she can do whatever it takes, musically. She sings her Ives with clear understanding, and that includes a dose of humor.

She proceeds with three songs of Bernstein, one of which--if I may--is perhaps the most irksome I know: "So Pretty," the Vietnam protest song, words by Comden & Green, premiered by Barbra Streisand. The Americans, you see, were killing all of those Vietnamese kids--who were "so pretty." No word on what Lenny, Betty, Adolph, and Barbra thought of the countless Vietnamese kids killed by Vietnamese Communists, especially after the war. Or maybe they weren't so pretty.

In addition to which, it's a dumb ditty, musically.

That living composer is Ben Moore, born in 1960, a generous eight of whose songs Voigt offers here. He is widely known for a parody song he wrote for this soprano--"Wagner Roles" (a hoot)--but these are true art songs. Moore uses an intelligent variety of texts, many of them musical: Joyce's Chamber Music, Elizabeth Bishop's "I Am in Need of Music." These are, in general, pleasant songs--tuneful, semi-pop-like--sung pleasantly.

Voigt continues with a set by Charles Tomlinson Griffes, the American Impressionist. His songs tend to be beautiful, long-lined, and sort of aching--right up Voigt's alley. And she closes with three songs by Amy Beach, known to the world as Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, until moderns thought she needed to be "Amy." There went one of the coolest names in music.

In the ancient tradition of mentioning the accompanist in the last line, I will say that Brian Zeger does his usual sensitive and skillful job.

Sir Simon Rattle has just begun his fourth season as music director of the Berlin Philharmonic, and they are making a slew of recordings (for EMI). The latest of them is a Debussy disc, on which you get the expected: La Mer and the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. But you get the unexpected, too, namely a suite from La Boite a joujoux (a ballet) and three piano preludes, orchestrated. The Berlin Philharmonic is a wonderful "French" orchestra, as any top orchestra would be: No music is foreign to an orchestra of quality. Sir Simon is a fair Debussyan, too, although his approach is sometimes a little too relaxed: La Mer, for example, could use more tension, more of a push-and-pull--more drama (which is not verboten in Impressionism).

There is no weak section in the Berlin Philharmonic, but its woodwinds are particularly fine. Good thing, too, as Debussy, like his fellows, calls on woodwinds, a lot. Beginning the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is Emmanuel Pahud, the superstar flutist. (Rampal and Galway proved there could be such a thing.) That's not a bad start.