CD: Richard Bonynge/London Symphony Orchestra with Milnes, Pavarotti, and Sutherland: Verdi: Rigoletto


The Confessional for the Culturally Clueless is now open, and we're ready to hand out penances. Come on now; it's not so bad. I've been there a few times myself, mispronouncing composers' and singers' names, not knowing one Dutch painter from another. You know who you are, you movie critics who bash classics you never saw, and you travel writers who see the Lorelei or Brunnhilde in every German female.

At the top of my list of potential penitents is Linda Hirshman, who in a recent Washington Post opinion piece invoked"La donna e mobile," from Verdi's Rigoletto, to drub women as fickle -- politically fickle, at that.

Imagine that. The woman does not know the libretto. Get Ms. Hirshman out from behind a computer screen and over to a performance of Rigoletto before the Washington National Opera gets to the next item on its schedule.

Of course you classical music fans already know that Rigoletto is a tale of love and vengeance, a heartbreaking account of what happens when a man shuts his heart to compassion -- and a woman is willing to risk everything for the same. The consequences are terrible indeed when Rigoletto (baritone), the hunchbacked court jester who has made a profession of mocking cuckolds and distraught fathers, discovers that his cherished and sheltered daughter, Gilda (soprano), is the latest victim of scandal.

The culprit, of course, is that most faithless of characters, the duke of Mantua, who gets to show off that golden tenor with "La donna e mobile" -- between conquests, of course.

It's called irony, Linda.

I'll leave off plot summaries here and get to the music, which will hurl you from one emotional state to another. As operas go, there's quite a bit of drama at here, and it even translates quite well in the recordings. There's that overture filled with foreboding, followed by the tender duets between Rigoletto and his daughter, and of course the duke's appropriately charming solos. That guy does get around (Listen to "Possente amor mi chiama"and "Questa o quella").

"Caro nome," Gilda's reflection on first love, for all its delicacy and sweetness, is every bit as laden with irony as "La donna e mobile," given who is pursuing her, in what guise and at what cost.

And the third act quartet blending the voices of Rigoletto, Gilda, the duke, and Maddalena (contralto) is still one of my favorite moments in opera.

For those of you searching for a complete recording of Rigoletto, there are several options at the ready on Olsson's opera shelf. The most tempting is possibly the London version with Sherrill Milnes as Rigoletto, Luciano Pavarotti as the duke, and the great Joan Sutherland as Gilda. There's tremendous beauty in the voices, and drama and emotion in the performance. If Sutherland strikes you as a somewhat unconventional choice for Gilda, do listen to what she does with the role. Her duets with Milnes are a particular joy.

And Pavarotti, of course, is Pavarotti, at the top of his game and also making it look like fun and not work (appropriate enough, given his role).

I'm going to be the skunk at the garden party here, though, and mention one of your other tempting options for a full-length Rigoletto: the Deutsche Grammophon recording with Piero Cappuccilli, Ileana Cotrubas, and Placido Domingo. Again, the matching of voices to material is most attractive, and I particularly like Domingo's characterization of the duke. He does sound like a lover here, and it's no wonder Gilda is only too ready to follow that enticing voice.

Then again, when tenor meets soprano, it's bound to end in tears. But oh, that music.

CD: Harry Christophers/The Sixteen: A Mother's Love: Music for Mary

"Who are The Sixteen Harry Christophers?"

It sounds like the response to a clue on Jeopardy! But that was precisely the question put to me, quite sincerely, by an understandably confused customer at the classical music browser one day. Blame the CD cover design, blame the name of the choir, blame that infernal -s at the end of the conductor's surname.

The answer, of course, is that there is only one Harry Christophers, and it's his job to lead the choral and period-instrument ensemble known throughout Britain, and the world, as The Sixteen.

It is the choir, which blends male and female adult voices, including male altos, in which I'm particularly interested here. Classical music fans, particularly those who are seriously into choral music, are likely familiar with this popular ensemble.

But there is a twist. Beginning in 2000, The Sixteen have made an annual Choral Pilgrimage to various cathedrals, abbeys, and churches in the United Kingdom, performing the works of early music composers. This year's pilgrimage will focus on composers of the Tudor era.

Yes, The Sixteen come from the English vocal tradition and are known for their purity of tone, crisp diction, reverent yet impassioned interpretation of medieval and Renaissance works, but that is hardly the entire story. They are also very much at home with the composers of subsequent eras: early Classical, Romantic, 20th century. If their repertoire includes plainsong and Renaissance polyphony, it also finds a place for Britten, Faure, and the contemporary composer Margaret Rizza.

And that's precisely what they are about with A Mother's Love: Music for Mary.

A word about that title: despite my musical and church background, I was a bit nervous when I saw the album cover. Oh, the flashbacks to treacly parochial school renditions of "The Lourdes Hymn," rows of votive candles arrayed before painted statues, and of course backyard shrines somewhere in Cheektowaga, New York -- not that there's anything wrong with those things.

A few moments of listening to the performances dispelled those memories. Despite its sentimental title, A Mother's Love is something more powerful, more robust, more universal, and ultimately more moving than I had expected: a century-spanning selection of music inspired by Mary of Nazareth. If you love choral music, particularly Renaissance polyphony and medieval plainsong, this is for you. If you enjoy the beauty of the human voice and seek inspiration of any kind, this has your name on it as well.

The Sixteen had taken up the Marian theme before this, with a reverent yet joyous album entitled Devotion to Our Lady, comprised entirely of liturgical music from Tomas Luis de Victoria. A Mother's Love is no less rooted in prayer and meditation, but it is closer to a thematic album than a choral mass. The texts span the centuries, and are recurring -- for example, there are multiple settings of Ave Maria and Ave Maris Stella -- but the effect is exhilarating rather than repetitious.

There are shimmering interpretations of works from the Renaissance, not only Josquin and Palestrina but also Cornysh, Lassus, and Obrecht, as well as a lively reading of the medieval Alma Redemptoris Mater. Note that macaronic text (i.e., in Latin and the vernacular).

Another surprise for me was discovering that both Edward Elgar and Edvard Grieg, the Briton and the Scandinavian, had composed works on a Marian theme. Grieg's Ave Maris Stella typically shows up on Christmas albums and is a most welcome surprise here, as is the Elgar Ave Maria.

The album showcases, as I said, a stunning diversity of composers from across the eras: Durufle, Faure, Liszt, Mendelssohn. One of the jewels here is the early Benjamin Britten composition "A Hymn to the Virgin," and there is an actual world premiere performance as well, Margaret Rizza's Ave Generosa, written according to the Taize tradition.

The texts range from Scripture passages to traditional prayers. Surprisingly, verses from the famously sensuous Song of Solomon turn up, notably in Palestrina's Sicut Lilium Inter Spinas, but this reflects a meditation on spiritual beauty and purity, as embodied in Mary's commitment to the will of God.

I've often thought the figure of Mary of Nazareth was oversentimentalized and misunderstood, and as I set to thinking about this week's blog -- coincidentally, right around the Catholic Church's Feast of the Annunciation, which marks the angel Gabriel's visit to Mary -- a veritable bookshelf full of titles came back to me: Rosemary Mahoney's The Singular Pilgrim, Caryll Houselander's The Reed of God, Ann Johnson's Miryam of Nazareth, all of which touch on Marian themes as a means to press onward to universal issues of grace, the spiritual journey, and human interconnectedness.

Houselander, writing during World ar II, particularly understood that images from the Scriptures are often reflected in modern life, that Mary and Joseph fleeing with the infant Jesus have their parallel in every refugee family displaced by war and persecution. If she were writing today, she'd be able to see the sacred within the sorrows depicted each day in our media.

And the Mary of the Gospels and tradition has long epitomized the reflective soul on a journey of sorrow and joy.

DVD: Our Mutual Friend

Among my treasures is a book called The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible! Discovered quite by chance one day at Olsson's Bethesda store, The Good Old Days has ever since been a part of my collection of books on the 19th century and serves as a warning against romanticizing that particular era. Consider, for example, what dramatic progress the human race has made in but two areas, sanitation and mental health care, and I think you'll agree that time travel back to the Victorian age doesn't seem such a good idea after all.

But I do recommend time travel of a different sort, via DVD, and that you make room for both romance and squalor -- and the aforementioned sanitation and mental health issues -- when you sit down to watch the BBC's splendid 1998 adaptation of Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend. This convoluted, colorful tale concerns the intertwined lives and fortunes of people in degraded and exalted conditions, though at times it becomes difficult to tell just who is who. The many characters include:

John Harmon (Steven Mackintosh), newly returned from abroad to collect his inheritance and enter an arranged marriage.

Bella Wilfer (Anna Friel), Harmon's intended, eager to escape poverty but vaguely ashamed of her acquisitive nature.

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin (Peter Vaughan and Pam Ferris), humble, hard-working people who experience a dramatic shift of fortune.

Lizzie Hexam (Keeley Hawes), a gentle young woman whose father (David Schofield) makes a living collecting the corpses of the drowned from the River Thames.

And a pair of lawyers who play a pivotal role in the action: the wonderfully decent Mortimer Lightwood (Dominic Mafham) and his jaded friend Eugene Wrayburn (Paul McGann).

This being Dickens, that doesn't even represent a fraction of the characters, nor by any means the weirdest of them. Believe me, there's ample competition for that last category, given the presence of Messrs. Venus, Sloppy, and Headstone.

As for the story's setting, it ranges from elegant lawns and ballrooms, where the desperate and the devious seek to rise in society, to the actual garbage dumps of London, where fortunes of another sort are made and lost. In fact, regardless of the setting, we're never very far from the subject of true worth, which, Dickens warns us, is not necessarily measured by possessions or social class.

To put it bluntly, the story deals with love and money, and the acts to which people are driven to acquire one or the other. That is not to say that we are among only mercenary people, though Bella Wilfer would shamefacedly admit to that label. But human desire propels much of the action, leading characters to blackmail and a good deal worse.

One event that stands out is an utterly terrifying marriage proposal ( in a graveyard, no less), made by the aforementioned Mr. Headstone. It's a tribute to David Morrissey's performance that he can render such a profoundly disturbed character resolutely human.

Now that I've warned you about Morrissey's meltdown, let's take a deep breath and turn to the other characters. Anna Friel (Chuck on Pushing Daisies), as Bella, is delightfully watchable, warmly appealing even in the character's less admirable moments. Her vivacity contrasts nicely with the gravity of Steven Mackintosh (a versatile and perhaps underappreciated actor).

And speaking of contrasts, it was a fine bit of casting that brought the cool and magnetic Paul McGann into this production. The man was born to play in period pieces, and I hope directors won't forget him if, say, Mr. Timothy or The Meaning of Night is ever brought to the screen.

His on-screen partner, Keeley Hawes, also no stranger to literary adaptations, has a quiet strength as Lizzie Hexam, a woman who in herself is proof enough that treasure can be found in unexpected places.

The DVD is a storytelling treasure, with nearly six hours of material on a two-sided disc, which includes a helpful menu listing all the scenes and extras. Of particular interest is side 2's documentary, Dickens: The Final Chapter, which contains production notes from cast and crew, paired with an unflinching look at the realities of life during the Victorian age. I'd recommend that you not make the same mistake I did and watch it during lunch. All I can say is, thank God for modern sanitation systems.

CD: Chee-Yun: Violin Essentials

Some weeks back a friend and I decided we both needed to see The Bucket List, a recent movie about two cancer patients who decide they'll systematically accomplish a lifetime's worth of dreams and ambitions. It goes without saying that our two heroes aim for soul-enriching experiences, such as seeing the pyramids, and not, for example, cleaning out their closets. Since then I have kept my own bucket list, a rather modest one. After all, life is not like the movies, except for the copious profanity.

Still, I'm a warm advocate of list-making, whether the subject is groceries, Shakespearean plays, or movies. It's worth asking: What do you need? What do you want? What belongs among your life's priorities?

These days several labels are very much in that list-making mode. RCA, for example, issued a series of Essential collections, attractively priced double-disc sets such as The Essential Leon Fleisher, The Essential Montserrat Caballe, The Essential Jose Carreras, even The Essential Julian Bream.

Note to self: Make time to listen to Bream.

Anyway, Denon too has gotten into the act, with budget retrospective collections from Helene Grimaud (Piano Essentials: The World's Greatest Piano Music) and Chee-Yun (Violin Essentials: The World's Greatest Violin Music).

That description, The World's Greatest Violin Music, certainly sets the bar high. Fiddle fans out there are probably already guessing what's on the playlist. Most of you won't need to be told that Massenet's "Meditation" from Thais is included, along with "Salut d'amour" (Elgar) and "Vocalise" (Rachmaninoff). And yes, there's a movement from Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. How could there not be?

I was first taken with Chee-Yun when she released a recital disc on the Denon label back in the '90s. Her emotional expressiveness, even in the most familiar pieces, was immensely appealing.

On this CD, several tracks feature Chee-Yun as the soloist with the London Philharmonic, under the baton of Jesus Lopez-Cobos. The disc opens with the Rondo Allegro from Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, in which the orchestra gradually announces itself and then the violinist skips in her part. It's rather like having party guests sneaking in one by one and then cranking up the music. We're here!

On most of the tracks, though, the musicians melt away to just two: Chee-Yun and her pianist, Akira Eguchi (of The Faure Album and The Fiddler of the Opera, both with Gil Shaham). I love the subtlety and hint of melancholy in the Nocturne from Khachaturian. The CD closes with a selection from Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, in which the musicians seem to echo and answer in each other in beautifully flowing passages. It provides a graceful coda to a most pleasurable album.