Laurence Meikle, who recently made the transition to bass, opened last night at the Festival della Valle d'Itria as Carlo Belmonte in Meyerbeer's rarely performed opera Margherita d'Anjou. Meikle began exploring the transition to bass in 2016 when he performed Mozart's Così fan tutte with Fabio Luisi at the Festival della Valle d'Itria.
Margherita d'Anjou marked Meyerbeer's debut and first real success at the Teatro alla Scala. The opera is loosely based on an actual historical themes about the English Wars of the Roses. The opera was the first by Meyerbeer to mix historical events and personages with fictional characters and situations, as his French grand operas Les Huguenots, Le prophète and L'Africaine were later to do. It contains opulent
virtuoso and broad choral passages, along with several ensembles for male voices, including a trio for bass voices.
Laurence Meikle
The opera premiered at La Scala on November 14, 1820 and was subsequently performed throughout Europe in Italian, French and German. It received its US debut in New Orleans on April 17, 1854. This is the first modern era production of the opera that is fully stage, There was a concert performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London in November 2002. A new critical edition of the score was published by Ricordi Berlin in 2015.
From October 29 to November 8, Meikle will return to the Teatro di San Carlo as Osmin in the Strehler production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He performed there earlier this year as Grenvil in Verdi's La traviata.
Bass-barihunk Aaron Sørensen has had an interesting beginning to the new year, performing two world premieres and his second Osmin.
He just released a song cycle by four-time Emmy Award-winning composer Glen Roven that was written with his voice in mind. The original song cycle is based on wine tasting notes from Obsidian Ridge Winery in Sonoma, California that were penned by winemaker Alex Beloz. The text screams for music with phraes like "dancing on the palate" and "a full crescendo of
stony tannins." Only Sørensen's rich, deep base could do justice
words like "dark hibiscus" which almost demands to be written for the lowest reaches of the human voice.
The song cycle will be premiered at the winery on June 20th and we'll have more details in a future post. There was also a video of the songs taped at Henry's Restaurant in New York City, which you can watch below. The video was directed by the gifted opera director John De Los Santos.
The former Barihunks calendar model also just sang in the world premiere of Gregory Vajda’s comic opera Georgia Bottoms with fellow barihunk Mike Nyby and the Huntsville Symphony. The opera about the modern South, is based on the national best-seller by Alabama author Mark Childress.
On March 7th he'll sing his second performance of Osmin in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail with the Peabody Opera Theatre in Baltimore. Osmin was Sørensen's dream role and he just debuted it with the Houston Symphony last month. The Peabody performance will be directed by Garnett Bruce, who directed their successful Rake's Progress in 2011.
The opera will be performed at the Modell
Performing Arts Center in
Baltimore and tickets are available online.
For all of you BariChunk lovers: Kurt Rydl as Osmin in Salzburg
Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail premiered on this date in 1782. We often don't focus a lot on the bass end of the barihunk range, so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity. The opera contains three arias for Osmin and the music goes down to the lowest reaches of the bass range.
Mozart wrote the role of Osmin for the formidable bass Ludwig Fischer, who was a friend of the composer. Mozart also wrote the aria "Alcandro, lo confesso…Non sò, d'onde viene" (K. 512) for the singer and some other concert arias. This is significant, because he had primarily written these concert show pieces for sopranos and the occasional tenor.
Ludwig Fischer
A letter between Mozart and his father dated September 26, 1781 shows that Osmin originally had very little music.
"In the original libretto Osmin has only [one] short song and nothing
else to sing, except in the trio and the finale; so he has been given an
aria in Act 1, and he is to have another in Act 2. I have explained to
Stephanie [the librettist] the words I require for the aria ['Solche
hergelaufne Laffen'] - indeed, I had finished composing most of the
music for it before Stephanie knew anything whatever about it. I am
enclosing only the beginning and the end, which is bound to have a good
effect. Osmin's rage is rendered comical by the use of the Turkish
music. In working out the aria I have allowed Fischer's beautiful deep
notes to glow. The passage 'Drum beim Barte des Propheten' is indeed in
the same tempo, but with quick notes; and as Osmin's rage gradually
increases, there comes (just when the aria seems to be at an end) the
Allegro assai, which is in a totally different metre and in a different
key; this is bound to be very effective. For just as a man in such a
towering rage oversteps all the bounds of order, moderation and
propriety and completely forgets himself, so must the music too forget
itself. But since passions, whether violent or not, must never be
expressed to the point of exciting disgust, and as music, even in the
most terrible situation, must never offend the ear, but must please the
listener, or in other words must never cease to be music, so I have not
chosen a key foreign to F (in which the aria is written) but one related
to it - not the nearest, D minor, but the more remote A minor."
The first aria is "Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden," which advises the listener to reward your loved one with kisses and make her life great, as well as to locking up your woman's other lovers, lest they tempt her to forget her faithfulness.
Gottlob Frick sings "Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden":
In the aria "Solche hergelaufne Laffen" Osmin graphically explains why he does not like Pedrillo. It's is mainly because Osmin and Pedrillo are both in love with Blondchen and Pedrillo is in better favor with both Blondchen and the Pasha.
Gottlob Frick sings "Solche hergelaufne Laffen":
After Pedrillo, Belmonte, Blondchen, and Konstanze are captured trying
to escape, Osmin sings of the delight that he will have when they are
all hanged in the aria "O wie will ich triumphieren."
Kurt Moll sings "O wie will ich triumphieren":
Ezio Pinza sings the aria in Italian:
Since the aria contains one of the lowest notes in the standard repertory, we thought that it would be fun to compare some of the greatest basses and their low D's (the aria goes from D2 to D4).
In chronological order: 1. Ezio Pinza 1947 (in Italian) 2. Mihaly Szekely 1959 (in Hungarian) 3. Gottlob Frick 1966 4. Kurt Moll 1974 5. Marti Talvela 1984 6. Matti Salminen 1987 7. Jaako Ryhänen 1988 8. Robert Lloyd 1991 9. Cornelius Hauptmann 1992 10. Franz Hawlata 2006 11. Kurt Rydl 2006
