The first great opera artist I experienced live was Rise Stevens as Octavian in a 1946 performance of Der Rosenkavalier by the touring Metropolitan Opera in Dallas. I had no idea at the age of nine that she was a great artist, but she certainly impressed me. Since then I have had lots of opportunities to hear many of those who have been called great–and over the past three decades to present many of them at Seattle Opera. Sadly, one never can hear everybody. I never attended a performance with Kirsten Flagstad or Lotte Lehmann who were still singing then, but I thought I had an aural and visual image of the great singers of the last sixty years. This kind of hubris has received its comeuppance in a big way because of work that I am doing for a course I shall teach at Stanford University this summer.
The course will discuss and analyze Les Troyens and Die Meistersinger, both of which will be presented this summer and fall by the San Francisco Opera. Recordings will illustrate whatever I have to say, and in preparing the Berlioz I checked out all the available recordings. I had never heard the live recording of Les Troyens of February 22, 2003, from the Metropolitan Opera. A few minutes into the Carthage section I suddenly realized both what I had missed and understood everything friends of mine have often said to me.
Practically from the first words of –“Nous avons vu finir,” certainly from her first real statement: “Chers Tyriens,” I realized that in Lorraine Hunt Lieberson I was hearing something amazing. As the recording went on I couldn’t believe the consistent intensity, the variety of vocal approaches, the sensitivity to the meaning of every word, the evenness in sound throughout the large range of the part of Dido, the flawless French diction, in fact everything. The many big moments of Dido had a freshness to them that was remarkable–especially a breathtaking love duet with Ben Heppner at his best and an “Adieu, fiere cite” that understated the tragedy, thereby making her feelings all the more real–but what mattered most was that I was not hearing someone singing Dido, I was hearing her living the Carthaginian queen. I can only say that listening to this recording hit me similarly to my first exposure to Maria Callas, Leonie Rysanek, or Birgit Nilsson, just to name three great artists of the recent past.
I remembered all the things I had heard about her and was mystified that I had not experienced her extraordinary art. Looking up her career I found that she had sung in only one other production at the Metropolitan and only four performances of Les Troyens, this recording being the last. She sang at the Santa Fe Opera, once at San Francisco Opera and the New York City Opera, often in Europe, and of course she was famed for early music and recitals. Baroque, classical, and contemporary vocal music were her areas of most frequent work. I just missed her. Had she not died at the age of 52, she would have sung, I am sure, a lot more, and had I ever experienced her onstage, I would have turned over heaven and earth to bring her to Seattle Opera.
For those who don’t know her artistry I strongly recommend hearing her Bach and Handel recordings, plus this Troyens recording. Her work with Peter Sellars must have been astonishing. I know that she also worked extensively with director Stephen Wadsworth and scores of great conductors. She performed many rarely given baroque works, lots of contemporary operas but also such a familiar work as Carmen. Her recital and concert work must have been extraordinary; her performance of her husband’s Neruda Songs with James Levine and the Boston Symphony in 1999 unforgettable.
Stevens was one of the first major singers I saw as well. My first live opera performance was RIGOLETTO at the Met on January 6, 1950, with Warren, Di Stefano and Berger. I was fortunate to live in NY until 1967, so saw many of the major debuts of that era (Sutherland, Nilsson, Rysanek, Price, Corelli, Farrell et al). I was lucky enough to see a Stevens, Steber Rosenkavalier, uniting two of my favorite singers. I, too, regret not having seen Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on stage. I do have some of her recordings. And thanks to you, Speight, I was fortunate to be in the 1990 Seattle Opera audience to see Fleming, Heppner and Graham make their Seattle Opera debuts in RUSALKA,two years after they won the Met auditions.
I’m sure your TROYENS and MEISTERSINGER classes will be interesting and informative..
I managed to see Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on stage and shall never forget her Irene in Haendel’s Theodora at Glyndebourne. There is a DVD! Also in DVD see her Donna Elvira in Peter Sellars’ idiosyncratic Don Giovanni: whether in Harlem or elsewhere and even sung in English, Hunt managed to convey like few what this character is all about, namely, a woman for whom love knows no boundaries.
Then came my farewell from her. Hunt-Lieberson and Peter Sellars came to the London Barbican to stage two Bach’s cantatas. Sellars first told the audience that in his view, we should see Bach cantatas as if they were operas. There is in each of them an existential drama involving the excruciating dialogue between human beings and God. God never answers but in any case…he is the main character! In “Ich habe genug” an exhausted Hunt in a hospital gown carrying an intravenous drip made her entrance to center stage. She also pushed a lamp of the kind normally used in operating theaters, with a blinding light at first unbearable to her. There was not even a hospital bed. She simply laid on the floor and sang her desperation while trying the impossible, namely to escape from her own agony. When she finally accepted her fate, the lamp transformed itself in the light of God, and she started looking at it ecstatically. After been tortured by the light we all suddenly grasped its loving and radiant meaning before the abrupt total blackout at the end. I never saw Lorraine Hunt Lieberson again, but I always remember her when I listen to Bach cantatas. And, yes, Sellars was right. There is in most of them a drama comparable to the best in opera. One only needs the greatest of artists to confront us with this revelation.
I too heard Rise Stevens in Dallas in 1946. It was my first opera, but I was a vocal student at 16. I thought she was amazing.
Thanks for the post!
Hello Speight
You were very kind to me years ago when we worked together by phone to get Makvala Karashvilli from Moscow to Seattle for Cavalleria.
Concerning Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, I was on Texaco Opera Quiz-your alma mater long before it became mine-for that Troyens broadcast. I’m a Bostonian, and it was thee that Lorraine Hunt and won recognition as a violist, free lancing all over that city’s early music scene. She was known as something of a cut-up and as a phenomenal musician. Back then she was a violist who also sang. That became reversed a few years later, thanks largely to the late Craig Smith at Emmanuel Church and later Peter Sellars. Lorraine was the punked out Elvira in the Sellars-Harlem Don Giovanni. Your comparison to Callas is accurate in that both had warm yet edgy timbered voices, and both used those voices as only part of the performing package.
I met Lorraine a few times. She dated a buddy of mine years ago. I didn’t know her. But I followed her form violist to chorister to soloist and on the the Met Didon. I refused to leave my seat early to prepare for the Quiz. Michael Bronson was not happy with me-indeed I was seldom invited back after that. Who cares? The performance was magic.
I direct you to Lorraine’s recording of Britten’s Phaedra–another great work that at least on record she owned. God rest her soul.
I’m glad to read you are flourishing.
Best
Christopher Purdy
I think we also had Peter and Hildegarde Lynn in common.