Time for Messiah to make a comeback
BY ARTHUR KAPTAINIS, THE GAZETTE December 13, 2008
...Continued
No N??zet-S??guin reviews to relay this week, but there was a feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer by David Patrick Stearns, who sat in on a Philadelphia Orchestra rehearsal of Tchaikovsky's Path??tique Symphony and concluded that the Montrealer "at times conducts like a wise old man."
The critic also reports that N??zet-S??guin cancelled the first rehearsal of Tuesday because something he had eaten in Paris a few days before did not agree with him. I must try that one with my boss sometime.
But here is the big development on the YNS front. The conductor, recently acclaimed for his work with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester in Berlin, will return to the German capital in 2010 for an appearance with the mighty Berlin Philharmonic. You will recall that he turned down a last-minute substitution request from the Philharmonic last year so that he could fulfill his family-Christmas-concert commitments with the Orchestre M??tropolitain.
Annamaria Popescu, the Montreal-born mezzo-soprano, writes from Italy to remind us that she is a fifth-generation Canadian. She also points out that the Rossini showpiece she chose for the Op??ra de Montr??al Gala last Sunday - usually identified by the words of the cabaletta section, Di tanti palpiti - has a significant text.
First bear in mind that the character singing the piece, Tancredi, after whom the opera is named, is not a boy-crazy prima donna, but a noble knight in exile who returns to Sicily. (No need to be alarmed at the sex shift. The part was written for castrato.)
"Oh native land!" starts the recitative section, "Sweet and ungrateful native land, at last I return to you. I salute you, beloved earth of my forefathers, I kiss you. This is a peaceful day for me, my heart begins to breathe."
Hearts normally beat rather than breathe, but the need to rhyme in Italian dictated poetic licence. Note that one phrase, "terra degli avi miei," comes out unambiguously in French as "terre des mes a??eux," a close match for "terre des nos a??eux," from the original text of O Canada.
Popescu, who enjoyed a big success last season as Suzuki in the OdM's sold-out run of Madama Butterfly, resides in Milan, far from the terre des ses a??eux. She is currently preparing for a January production of Janacek's The Makropolous Case at La Scala.
akaptainis@sympatico.ca
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