| Home | Audio mag. | Stereo Review mag. | High Fidelity mag. | AE/AA mag. |
|
Behind the Scenes: Treemonisha ... Kalish and Jacobs ... Bishop-Kovacevich. Treemonisha. Reviewing the Houston Grand Opera's staging of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha in last September's MUSICAL AMERICA, Shirley Fleming described the outdoor production as "so rousing... that the audience was on its feet to shout and clap during the big dance numbers and probably would have been on stage with the cast if such a migration had been possible." That production, staged by Frank Corsaro and with new orchestrations by Gunther Schuller, was subsequently transferred to Washington and New York, though a protracted Broadway musicians' strike jeopardized the New York opening. Agreement was reached just in time to save both the Broadway run and Deutsche Grammophon's projected recording. On an early-November evening we arrived at RCA's Forty-fourth Street Studio 4A in time to find producer Tom Mowrey and the DG recording crew preparing for the seventh of a planned eight sessions. The cast was amazingly fresh; most of them, along with Joplin authority Vera Brodsky Lawrence, had been up at 3 a.m. for an appearance on the Today program. The principal business of that session, we noted agreeably, was the op era's elaborate, rousing finale, "A Real Slow Drag." Through the initial takes we sat next to Mrs. Lawrence, a sort of general adviser for the production and recording (Mowrey received her various counsels graciously and eagerly), and she spoke enthusiastically about her recent close association with the opera. We assured her that we were in no way daunted by the prospect of extended retakes as per formers and recording crew worked on solving all the problems of the complex number. "You know," she told us, "this is extremely difficult. It's like Mozart: If you don't get it exactly right...." In fact it took two hours to get "A Real Slow Drag" on tape to the satisfaction of all, with everyone greatly relieved that the lovely soprano of Carmen Balthrop, in the title role (Ms. Fleming had written of her in Houston that "there was no doubt as to who dominated vocally"), was holding up after such a long day. The two hours included a lengthy search for the source of a mysterious right-channel noise (ultimately traced back to the control-room monitor speaker itself), so with the finale on tape the clock conscious Mowrey darted out into the studio to position singers for the tricky "Confusion" ensemble. Once that number was completed, he did the same for "Treemonisha's Return" but had a surprise waiting for him when he returned to the control room to begin the first take: Seated at the control panel was conductor Schuller, waiting to hear the last "Confusion" takes. Recording producers are nothing if not unflappable, and Mowrey recovered quickly. "Are we on a break?" he inquired. Bishop-Kovacevich. This month Harris Goldsmith reviews Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich's completion of the Beethoven piano-concerto cycle begun by Stephen Bishop. (Colin Davis conducts throughout.) No, Bi shop-Kovacevich is not a new duo-piano team. Perhaps we should let a September 1975 press release from Harold Holt Ltd., the pianist's English representative, explain: "Many people have been puzzled that Stephen has changed his name. He was born in 1940 in Los Angeles of parents who had emigrated to the U.S.A. from Yugoslavia. His family name was Kovacevich, and in fact this is the name on his birth certificate and passport. Unfortunately, Stephen's parents separated and were eventually divorced-he stayed with his mother, who remarried. It was natural therefore for Stephen to take his mother's new married name of Bishop-even though legally and officially he was Kovacevich.... It is only during the last two years that he has thought seriously about reverting to his proper name. Certainly a concert tour of Yugoslavia [last] January had a profound effect on him, and it was shortly after that he decided to be come Bishop-Kovacevich, a logical and understandable move." Columbia's operas. The rumblings of operatic things to come at Columbia are beginning to take shape. Planned for recording in London in January was a complete Louise with Ileana Cotru bas and Placido Domingo, Georges Pretre conducting. Also planned are Il Trovatore and Tristan und !snide. The Trova tore, a coproduction with Melodiya, will feature Bolshoi Opera forces: Singers being talked about (no firm cast yet) are Renata Scotto (Le onora), Elena Obraztsova (Azucena), Vladimir Atlantov or Carlo Bergonzi (Manrico), and Yuri Mazurok (Di Luna). Tristan will be done in Vienna, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Philharmonic and an undisclosed cast. Kalish and Jacobs. Nonesuch has re leased a recording (to be reviewed next month by David Hamilton), coupling Elliott Carter's Double Concerto and the recent Duo for Violin and Piano. The concerto is especially noteworthy for bringing together two of the more- remarkable pianists around: Paul Jacobs (recording the harpsichord part for the second time, though he plays the piano part as well) and Gilbert Kalish. Both are well known indeed to New York concert goers and to contemporary-music enthusiasts, but now Nonesuch is presenting both to a much wider audience. Kalish in fact is in the midst of a startling display of versatility. Hard on the heels of the Carter disc, on which he also played in the Duo, Nonesuch released a disc of Haydn sonatas (his first solo record, we were astonished to learn from Nonesuch di rector Teresa Sterne) and, with Jan DeGaetani, a coupling of Schoen berg's Book of the Hanging Gardens and a Schubert song group. (In September 1974, Peter G. Davis called the DeGaetani-Kalish disc of Wolf Spanish Songbook selections "a revelation and decidedly the most important Lieder disc to appear in years.") Tentatively scheduled for March is a disc of Ives songs, also with DeGaetani, and names mentioned in connection with future solo projects include Haydn and Ives. Jacobs, meanwhile, was working on a sequel to his highly successful None such recording of the complete Schoenberg piano works (which Hamilton described in June 1975 as "a fresh and valid interpretation of the music from a pianist with the intellectual and digital equipment fully to re alize all of its potential"). Repertory: the complete Debussy etudes. Crossed-Wires Department. In December, reporting on Philips' entry into the U.S. orchestral recording scene, we erroneously credited the San Francisco Symphony recordings of the Eroica and New World Sym phonies to Edo de Waart, the orchestra's new principal guest conductor. The recordings were in fact conducted by music director Seiji Ozawa. ------ (High Fidelity, Feb. 1976) Also see: News and Views: Betamax's home videotape ... New noise-reduction systems ... The lost (headphone) cord. |