Review: Natalie Dessay--The Opera Singer
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- Опубліковано 17 бер 2021
- This sumptuous box, containing 33 CDs and 19 DVDs, two dozen complete operas (some duplicated) and more than half a dozen aria recitals, encapsulates the career of one of the great singing actresses of the last three decades. Dessay doesn't star in all of the productions here, but she shines nevertheless, and opera fans won't need any urging from me to snap this up while they can.
Thank you for this walkthrough and very thoughtful review of this amazing box set! Back when I was singing more coloratura repertoire, her singing-actress type quality meant that her recordings were often super informative to study when learning a new piece. I have so many of her recordings, or I'd definitely be interested in the box set!
Another great video David. These videos are an invaluable source of information (and entertainment) and as someone who is registered blind I find reading increasingly difficult. So please keep on talking whilst we keep on listening!
Thank you, I will.
Dear David, I just bought Dessay's album with the Cleopatras arias in the I-Tunes store. It is magnificent. I live in Brazil,
the situation here is a mess, but your videos and suggestions lift my spirits during difficult those times. I warmly thank you for you efforts.
It's my pleasure. I hope things will get better for all of us soon. Enjoy Cleopatra!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you so much.
One day, David, I would very much appreciate a quick walk-through of what I assume are the full scores behind you. It might not be on your beaten track, but I know you've waved Walton at us at one point; and assorted Bruckner full-scores. For the Dover-Editioned amongst us, a talk about what full-scores you must/ought/should have, versus the ones that you should run away from, would be helpful, I think.
I may do a talk on some of the more interesting stuff. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it some thought.
Many thanks for this review. Natalie Dessay put an end to her operatic career a few years back, after twenty five years as a stellar figure in opera, which is by no means a short career in my opinion, but she hasn’t stopped classical recitals. I went to her concert at the Bordeaux Opera House only 6 months ago where she performed a whole range of German lieder and French melodies, and even a couple of opera arias, accompanied by the wonderful classical pianist Philippe Cassard. She still has an extremely beautiful voice and of course is the most fascinating performer to watch too. And of course, as you mention in your video, she also sings jazz and has released a few CDs in that register. Also she has done straight theatre with great success and has performed in musicals, notably Passion by Stephen Sondheim in which she was quite simply extraordinary.
She is due to record further German lieder and French melodies to be released on CD in the near future. Great voice, great acting and a deservedly great career. Many thanks again!
Nice video David. Natalie Dessay is indeed a wonderful singer and your talk about the boxset is convincing. I have two beautiful CDs of her singing a bunch of arias. But most of all, if you like Natalie Dessay you need to watch the documentary Becoming Traviata. It’s extremely well made and shows her artistry and in general how an opera production comes together.
To be called "first class soprano" is big, coming from Dave, a most critical classical reviewer on the internet.
I actually like the fact that there are DVD’s of the operas. First I will admit that I am not an opera aficionado(sometimes referred to as an opera nut). To be honest I am not an aficionado of vocal recitals. I have a problem. I need to know the lyrics. So,basically I have stopped buying opera/recital cd’s. The lack of supplying lyrics makes things even worse. The advantage of DVD is that they usually have subtitles so I can watch and know the lyrics. In other words,I know what’s going. There a few operas that I can listen to. Rheingold,Walkers,Tristan and Isolde. It may be my own fault where I have tended to listen to classical music=orchestral music. Just my two cents concerning adding DVDs as part of the Dessay boxes.
Most opera CDs or CD sets (or recital albums) that I've purchased* include a full libretto in several languages, usually at least the original Italian and an English translation. Maybe this is only true of Baroque opera, which is what I tend to stick to. (If you ever want to try this older style of opera, J. A. Hasse's Artaserse was recorded by an Australian company, Pinchgut, in 2016, and I think you can buy DVDs directly from the company's web-site. I have the CD set and it's great!)
It is, though, very annoying when no lyrics are included-I heartily agree with you on that.
*My Rameau opera box, an Erato release, has no libretti, which is a stunning oversight, though the notes include internet links to the original documents; another Erato release, a 3-album-in-one Vivica Genaux box, also has no notes whatsoever, which explains its low price.
Thanks (from London UK) for another excellent talk. Just wondering how you manage to review a box with so many (30+?) hours of music, can’t believe you can hear it all. Maybe dip in judiciously?
I have heard (and seen) everything in the box as originally released (I think I mentioned that in passing in the course of talking about the DVDs), and in these cases if I'm unfamiliar with anything I do listen/watch afresh. Otherwise, I do a pretty thorough spot-check just to make sure it's what it says it is. In this case, I knew the set was coming so I had plenty of lead time and did a sort of "Dessay-a-thon" over the past six or seven months. Being mostly home during a pandemic helps a lot too.
Thanks, interesting. But your videos come out so thick and fast and I think you must be relying on your phenomenal memory of hearing things decades ago - or do you keep meticulous notes, like some I know in another world who document every wine they’ve ever tasted?
@@angusmcmillan8981 No, I never take notes, although I have written at least 5 or 6 thousand reviews for CT.com alone, and I have all of those for reference, plus literally thousands more over the years for print and other media. So I have a vast permanent database that's accumulated over time. Also, I do have a trick memory where music is concerned (and languages too). It's difficult to describe exactly how it works. For example, I tend never to forget irregular verbs and odd grammatical constructions. With music, not only do I remember virtually every tune I've heard since I was about 5 (including TV commercials, theme songs, and the like), I specifically remember differences between how things are played by different performers (for instance, if one instrument sticks out in an ensemble, or something is missing that I heard elsewhere). These differences stay with me like flashing red signs. I think it's why a became a critic in the first place--because I noticed the differences between versions and wanted to know why they were there vs. what the composer actually wrote. I still find that fascinating, and there's no question that if I didn't have this odd quirk of memory I could never do these videos at anything like this pace. It will slow down, however, once the pandemic is over and I have less free time (or other things to do that I've been putting off), so I figure I might as well load up the inventory now. Anyway, thanks for asking. I hope my answer hasn't bored you excessively.
Thanks, David. I wish the libretti were included though. Still a great deal, but I would've happily paid more for the text being part of it. What's a guy to do? Go online and hopefully hunt down the text somewhere then stare into his computer while the music plays? I hate that. Prefer to hold paper in my hands and listen to CDs on an actual stereo.
I would snap this up in a second if I didn't already have pretty much everything that's in it. (I'd still kind of like to have the big pretty box but I'm not completely out of my mind, or so I keep telling myself.)
Personal taste is all over the place when it comes to music and you've said yourself, David, that opera ( female singers in particular) fosters strong allegiances and allergies. In Dessay's case, I'll go only part way with you. For me, she's like Fleming, spellbinding voice, fine vocal acting, not generally convincing on stage. Most of her characters are variants on a highly-strung, edgy, slightly ditzy model, her performance in Rossignol one of the few exceptions. Ciofi has covered a similar repertoire and on cd there's not much to choose between them. Put them on video, as if Fille for example, I find much more light and shade in Ciofi's work. Not a majority opinion, I recognize, but then I seem to be the only person on the planet who's unconvinced by Jack Lemmon's work in movies. Vive la différence! And I very much look forward to your Handel opera reviews.
By the way, surely the 'walk the plank' photo comes from the Zimmerman production of Sonnambula, which no doubt you saw?
No doubt.
Texts and translations included for the more obscure material??
You must be joking.
@@DavesClassicalGuide i know. I guess im the eternal optimist though it seems the vast majority of the box is pretty well known
@@randywolfgang4943 Yes, it is, fortunately.
The Somnambulettes - perfect name for a white noise doo-wop group.
The story I’ve heard about R.Strauss’ Arabella was that his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal died while they were tweaking the piece. So Strauss decided to leave it as is, in homage to his friend. There’s some amazing music in Arabella, but it’s too long and underdeveloped in spots.