Monthly Archives: July 2022

Episode 155. Barely Sang at the Met I

July 28, 2022African American Singers, Behind the Iron Curtain, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Happy Birthday, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century MusicAida, Alexander Melik-Pashaev, Argeo Quadri, Arlene Saunders, Carl Maria von Weber, Charles Mackerras, Chester Kallman, Der Freischütz, Der Rosenkavalier, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Don Carlo, Eleanor Steber, Elisabeth Grümmer, Felicia Weathers, Ferdinand Leitner, Friedrich Schiller, Galina Vishnevskaya, Giacomo Puccini, Giangiacomo Guelfi, Giuseppe Verdi, Gundula Janowitz, Hugo van Hoffmansthal, Idomeneo, Igor Stravinsky, Irmgard Seefried, John Barbirolli, John Pritchard, Joseph Keilberth, Julia Varady, La Fanciulla del West, La Traviata, Leopold Ludwig, Martha Mödl, Metropolitan Opera, Nancy Evans, Nello Santi, Oskar Czerwenka, Pavel Lisitsian, Piero Cappuccilli, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, The Rake’s Progress, Thomas Schippers, Tristan und Isolde, Virginia Zeani, W.H. Auden, William McAlpine, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Wolfgang Windgassen, Wolgang Amadeus Mozartcountermelody

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Today’s brain teaser: What do world-class singers Irmgard Seefried, Virginia Zeani, Piero Cappuccilli, birthday girl Gundula Janowitz, Galina Vishnevskaya, Giangiacomo Guelfi, Felicia Weathers, Elisabeth Grümmer, Wolfgang Windgassen, Pavel Lisitsian, and Arlene Saunders, have in common? If you need a hint, it’s in the title of today’s episode: each of them sang at least one and not more than ten performances at that venerable institution, the Metropolitan Opera. These and a number of other artists will be featured on this week’s episode, to be followed by more world-class artists who, for one reason or another (though certainly not talent, skill, or ability) “barely sang at the Met.” We hear music of Mozart, Strauss, Verdi, Stravinsky, Wagner, Puccini, and Weber, led by conductors who either were fixtures at the Met (Thomas Schippers, Nello Santi, Dimitri Mitropoulos), appeared occasionally at the Met (Leopold Ludwig, Charles Mackerras), or never appeared there (Wolfgang Sawallisch, Ferdinand Leitner, Joseph Keilberth) or appeared there only once (John Barbirolli, who led a single gala concert there in 1940).

Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus cotent including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Episode 154. Adele Addison @ 97

July 22, 2022African American Singers, Art Song, Crossover, Full-Figured Baroque, Great Baritones, Happy Birthday, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century Music, Voiceless WondersA.E. Housman, Aaron Copland, Adele Addison, Albert da Costa, Andre Previn, Arthur Rimbaud, Benjamin Lees, Brooks Smith, Canterbury Tales, Celius Dougherty, Charles Munch, Claude Debussy, Dawn Upshaw, DuBose Heyward, Earl Kim, Emily Dickinson, Francis Poulenc, Frederic Waldman, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Frideric Handel, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Johann Sebastian Bach, Leonard Bernstein, Lester Trimble, Lukas Foss, Milton Katims, Paul Verlaine, Porgy and Bess, Povla Frijsh, Robert Conant, Robert McFerrin, Robert Shaw, Samuel Beckett, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, Walt Whitman, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartcountermelody

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This Sunday, 24 July 2022, the great African American lyric soprano Adele Addison observes her 97th birthday. This Countermelody tribute presents this great artist in live and studio recordings during the glory years of her career, including performances conducted by three of her most important conductor collaborators, Robert Shaw, Charles Munch, and Leonard Bernstein. Addison might be best remembered today as providing the ghost voice for Dorothy Dandridge in Otto Preminger’s controversial 1959 film of Porgy and Bess, but her greatest artistic achievement undoubtedly centers on her concert and recital work. Among countless world premieres in which she participated, the most significant was probably the Gloria of Francis Poulenc, first heard in Boston in January 1961. Other contemporary composers represented in this episode are Aaron Copland, Lester Trimble, Lukas Foss, and Benjamin Lees; Addison’s exceptional performances of Handel, Bach, Mozart, and Debussy are also featured. Vocal guest stars include Robert McFerrin, with whom she duets in an excerpt from Porgy; the eminent recitalist Povla Frijsh, who was her voice teacher and coach; and Dawn Upshaw, probably her most renowned student. Please join me in celebrating the long life and legacy of this exceptional artist and teacher.

Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Episode 153. Eleanor Steber I

July 15, 2022Bel canto, Broadway, Crossover, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Happy Birthday, Interview, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Opera in Translation, Operetta, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Twentieth Century MusicAlban Berg, Alexandre Dumas, Arabella, Astrid Varnay, Cosi fan tutte, David Belasco, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Edwin Biltcliffe, Eleanor Steber, Enzo Viaro, Eric Coates, Ernani, Fausto Cleva, Frederick Weatherly, Fritz Busch, Fritz Stiedry, Georg Büchner, George London, Giuseppe Antonicelli, Giuseppe di Stefano, Howard Barlow, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, I Puritani, Il Trovatore, James A. Bland, James Agee, Jean Madeira, Joseph Keilberth, Jussi Bjorling, Karl Böhm, La Fanciulla del West, La Traviata, Lohengrin, Madama Butterfly, Mario del Monaco, Max Rudolf, Naughty Marietta, Nicholas Harsanyi, Percy Faith, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Risë Stevens, Royden Barrie, Rudolf Kempe, Samuel Barber, Victor Herbert, Victor Hugo, Vincenzo Bellini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wozzeckcountermelody

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July 17 is the 108th birthday of Eleanor Steber, surely one of the all-time greatest singers that the United States has ever produced (as well as one of the most versatile and technically-accomplished!) In long overdue Countermelody tribute to this exceptional artist, I present the first of two very special episodes honoring Eleanor. After the “usual” career overview featuring mostly live highlights from her operatic appearances all over the world, I turn the stage (or in this case the mic), over to my dear friend Michelle Oesterle, founder and conductor of the Manhattan Girls Chorus, who was also Eleanor Steber’s stepdaughter. As such she spent time (especially in the summer months) with her father and Eleanor at Melody Hill, Eleanor’s estate on Long Island. She provides us with an unparalleled intimate portrait of Eleanor as woman and as singer and describes the profound influence that Eleanor had in her life, as well as the characteristics that combined to make her the profoundly appealing and moving interpreter that she was. She also addresses the white elephant in the room, that is, Eleanor’s alcoholism, and makes a plea for tolerance and understanding vis-à-vis this serious disease. The Steber tribute will continue with a further episode sometime in the next month. For now, let us raise our glasses (of sparkling mineral water), in tribute to this phenomenal artist, the like of which we will never see again. Musical selections range from Victor Herbert to Alban Berg and everything in between. Thank you, Michelle, and evviva Eleanor!

Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Episode 152. Patricia Neway

July 8, 2022Art Song, Broadway, French Opera, Full-Figured Baroque, Great Baritones, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Pop Icons, Protest Songs, Twentieth Century Music, VerismoA Hand of Bridge (Barber), Arnold Black, Arnold Voketaitis, Carlisle Floyd, Carlo Maria Giulini, Carousel (Rodgers & Hammerstein), Christoph Willibald Gluck, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Dietrich Buxtehude, Franca Duval, Francis Poulenc, Frederick Dvonch, Genia Las, George Bernanos, Gian Carlo Menotti, Iphigénie en Tauride, Israel Citkowitz, Jack Elliott, James Joyce, Jerome Kern, John Gruen, Joseph Machlis, Julius Rudel, Lehman Engel, Maria Golovin (Menotti), Norman Treigle, Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Patricia Neway, Peter Herman Adler, Regina Sarfaty, Richard Cross, Richard Rodgers, Robert Colston, Rosemary Kuhlmann, Ruth Kobald, Samuel Barber, The Consul (Menotti), The Sound of Music (Rodgers & Hammerstein), Thomas de Hartmann, Vladimir Golschmanncountermelody

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Today begins a new summer series on Countermelody, celebrating mid-century music-making in New York City between the years 1950 and 1975. We begin with a celebration of Patricia Neway (1919-2012), one of the towering figures of the operatic – and Broadway – stages. Two of her greatest assumptions, in fact, took place on the Broadway stage: Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera The Consul, which premiered on Broadway in 1950, and the Mother Abbess in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final stage music, The Sound of Music, for which Neway was awarded the 1960 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Neway combined an unusual voice of startling, sometimes raw, power, with an acting ability rarely seen, especially on the operatic stage. Neway’s range easily encompassed contralto roles as well as dramatic soprano parts. This episode features audio excerpts from rare kinescopes of her performances of Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites as Menotti’s Maria Golovin, as well as her galvanizing portrayal of Magda Sorel from a 1960 film. She also displays her stunning musical versatility in music by Buxtehude, Barber, Gluck, and the late Carlisle Floyd, as well as settings by Israel Citkowitz, John Gruen, and Thomas de Hartmann of texts by James Joyce from a rare 1959 recording. In addition, I dispel forever the fake news, all pervasive claims to the contrary, that Patricia Neway and someone named Frances Breeze, an exact contemporary of Neway’s, are one and the same person.

Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.