13.03.2010 Vivica Genaux, la 'mezzosoprano' superdotada

La cantante estadounidense graba una recopilación de arias de ópera de Vivaldi con Europa Galante

Resulta admirable comprobar cómo composiciones viejas de 300 años cobran vida en la voz de la cantante norteamericana Vivica Genaux (1969) como si fuesen piezas que acaban de ser estrenadas. Se trata de una recopilación de arias operísticas de Vivaldi, a cargo de Genaux, incluyendo piezas que nunca antes habían sido grabadas. Es un disco jovial, amigable y entretenido, que no deja de lado el confort que el progreso y la higiene han brindado a nuestras vidas en las últimas décadas y resulta apropiado para cualquiera en cualquier momento del día.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) era empresario teatral y necesitaba ganar dinero y tener contentos a los asistentes a sus estrenos. Divertir al público era esencial para él y, en consecuencia, su música es efectista, frívola y juguetona. Música escrita para que gustase a la primera escucha a unos espectadores envueltos en rasos y oropeles, rígidos, pesados y malolientes, que un día asistían al estreno de Semiramide o de Griselda y al siguiente se reían como locos en una ejecución pública con sus nidos de pulgas y piojos en ebullición debajo de sus pelucas empolvadas. Cualquier infección que pillaban en sus letrinas malolientes o en sus basureros flotantes les podía matar antes de cumplir 45 años: vidas de perros en las que los momentos mejores y más memorables eran sin duda las veladas musicales. En algún momento el gusto cambió y, durante dos siglos, la prolífica obra del violinista veneciano estuvo cubriéndose de polvo, telarañas y polillas hasta que, bien entrado el siglo XX, los sesudos estudiosos cayeron en la cuenta de lo decisivos que habían sido sus hallazgos para la evolución de la música y lo que había sido entretenimiento se convirtió en erudición.

Vivica Genaux nació en Alaska y sus ancestros le han legado una combinación de sangre tan rica y efervescente como un jugo de naranja matutino. Su vitalidad y su técnica le permiten enfrentarse a los trinos y florituras más complicados y difíciles de la tradición más extrema del bel canto como si fueran un mero pasatiempo para su garganta de mezzosoprano superdotada. El placer de escucharle subir y bajar escalas, repiquetear, trinar y gorjear es casi físico.

Tanto su dinamismo como el de sus acompañantes, los vibrantes y energéticos Europa Galante, dirigidos por el violinista virtuoso Fabio Biondi, resulta irresistible. La espléndida voz de Genaux parece deslizarse sobre las partituras con la agilidad saltarina de un gorrión y de un jilguero que alguna vez fuera mujer y que ahora es campanilla, castañuela y traca final. Festiva, bulliciosa, contagiosa y más allá de lo humano y de lo posible.

PATRICIA GODES

11.01.2010 Pyrotechnics - Vivaldi Opera Arias Vivica Genaux (mezzo-soprano); Europa Galante/Fabio Biondi

Firmly established as a specialist in Baroque music, Vivica Genaux has repeatedly stunned her listeners with jaw-dropping renditions of the most hair-raisingly difficult coloratura music. Though she has spent a good deal of time on stage impersonating Rossini's comic heroines (most notably Angelina, in La cenerentola), Genaux clearly has an affinity for music associated with the great castrati.

It was her attempt to expose the public to the breadth of virtuosity wielded by the great Farinelli that yielded her first solo disc, appropriately titled 'Arias for Farinelli'. On that disc, she collaborated with Rene Jacobs to offer some of the most impressively virtuosic singing I have ever heard. Indeed, despite the strong showing of many worthy countertenors, it was Genaux who – perhaps for the first time – truly demonstrated something similar to the technical arsenal for which the castrati were so famously admired. She has since expanded her recorded repertoire quite successfully (Handel, Scarlatti, Hasse, Donizetti, Rossini), but with this newest release, she once again brings an intense focus to the ornate flourishes of the Italian Baroque. 'Pyrotechnics' – entirely comprised of arias and scenes by Vivaldi – is another triumphant showcase for one of the most accomplished vocal technicians of our times.

Beginning with 'Come in vano il mare irato', an allegro molto aria from Vivaldi's Catone in Utica, Genaux jumps in with all guns firing, pinning the listener to his seat in utter disbelief. This exhilarating vengeance aria in C-major asks the singer for five and a half minutes of roulades, leaps, turns, arpeggios, and trills. Frankly, I was so disbelieving that I stopped and re-started from the beginning three or four times before I made it through the entire aria. Interestingly, it was originally composed for a mezzo-soprano, so the castrati were not the sole purveyors of astonishing technique back in Vivaldi's day. From the heights of energetic coloratura, Genaux transitions into the mesmerizing, phenomenally long-phrased 'E prigioniero e re' from Semiramide. Without speed to generate the 'pyrotechnics', Genaux offers chameleonic dynamic variations and immaculate control of phrasing, along with superb diction, allowing us to understand every word of the text. These first two tracks couldn't be more contrasting in their vocal requirements, and illustrate perfectly the following quote from Frédéric Delamea's interesting liner notes: '[In Vivaldi's time], virtuosity was never empty; on the contrary, it played an important part in bringing the drama to life, always taking as its point of departure the text suggested by the librettist and enhanced by the composer. Far from being a meaningless procedure, the fireworks symbolized the aesthetic of a vocal genre based on the stylization and the rejection of trivial realism.' Stated another way, sometimes 'pyrotechnics' are literal: scales, roulades, triplets, and trills. But intensity of expression can also come from dynamic shading, breath control, and vocal coloring.

Thus, the listener is treated to a feast for the ears, as one aria follows another, each giving us a new angle from which to view Vivaldi's genius. His 'instrumental' writing for the voice comes to the fore in 'Alma oppressa', a 'rage' aria from La fida ninfa in which Genaux dazzles with supreme breath control while she traverses a range well over two octaves, sounding like an additional member of the orchestra much of the time. In 'Agitata da due venti' from Griselda, the composer metaphorically buffets the voice with tremendously taxing runs and vocal acrobatics. This is surely the most well known aria among the thirteen selections, and Genaux's version is by a good margin, the fastest, most accurate, and thrilling version on recordings. The velocity becomes all the more impressive when Genaux and Biondi choose not to contrast the 'B' section by slowing down; indeed, they barely pause for breath, underlining the despair and frustration the character Costanza is suffering. Among the remaining selections, there is no denying that a couple of the arias are perhaps more conventional (i.e., less interesting at first listen), but each has assets well worth exploring, and none is performed without keen intelligence and total commitment.

Genaux's most remarkable asset is her ability to vividly convey the emotional underpinnings of the notes on the page, whether they are frightfully fast or languorously slow. Her voice is not conventionally beautiful, and there are a couple of arias that require a higher tessitura that emphasizes the graininess in her tone. Still, her skill in molding her voice to meet every conceivable vocal challenge is stunning. Furthermore, the research she has invested in each aria is manifest in the breadth of characters she is able to inhabit without resorting to externally applied artifice. As she sings, the listener is drawn into the music via the thoughts and feelings of the character: we cheer Emilia's defiant rage as surely as we are touched by Zoroastro's inner strength and resolve. Even in the arias with no traceable operatic context (there are three on the disc), Genaux's interpretive powers bring anonymous characters to life.

Of course, Genaux is not the only artist at work in these virtuoso compositions, and it would be hard to imagine more effective collaborators than the esteemed Fabio Biondi and his virtuoso ensemble Europa Galante. The accompaniments throughout the programme focus heavily on the strings, with winds (flutes, horns) only occasionally adding extra color and interest. The latter are particularly important in 'Nella foresta' from Catone in Utica, in which the horns illustrate Emilia's anguish quite stunningly. In fact, one of the minor drawbacks for this Vivaldi showcase is the recording quality itself, which brings Genaux a bit too far forward, leaving her superb collaborators slightly muted. I rarely heard the raw energy of original instruments that might have given these arias the maximum degree of excitement and vitality. A better sonic balance would have afforded a bit more insight into Vivaldi's instrumental details, yet this is a small concern in light of the overall achievement. This disc is a required purchase for all fans of Vivaldi, Genaux, and/or great singing combined with scholarship: what a fantastic way to start the New Year!

David Laviska