Episode 211. Janet Baker @ 90
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This past week the opera world was plunged into mourning over the sudden death of Renata Scotto. Originally I had intended this week’s episode to be devoted to her memory. But I can’t even speak her name without bursting into tears. In other words, I need more time as I try to come to terms with her demise. I have decided to feature the matchless singing actor in the first episode of Season Five. In the meantime, we have another momentous occasion (and artist) to acknowledge: the 90th birthday of the English Rose: the phenomenal Janet Baker. Given that I could probably devote an entire podcast to Dame Janet, and given the wealth of material in my personal collection featuring this artist, much of it rare and unusual, I have chosen to feature this beloved artist in her third full Countermelody episode. There are few vocal artists in the history of classical music who have exhibited greater versatility than Janet Baker; this episode features many rare performances across the entirety of her long career of repertoire in which she had virtually no equal, as well as music in which she also excels but which might prove surprising. Thus we hear the expected mélodie, Lied, British song and Bach aria alongside Purcell’s Dido and pants roles by both Mozart and Richard Strauss. But we also hear such surprises as Monteverdi’s Poppea (sinuously and surprisingly sexy), Bellini’s Romeo (opposite Beverly Sills), William Walton’s Cressida (in the 1976 version of his opera Troilus and Cressida refashioned expressly for Baker), and a sublime extended orchestral song by Respighi, as well as the ultimate jaw-dropper, Rossini’s Cenerentola! We wish long life and continued health and vitality to one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos of the twentieth century!
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem aeternam (Messa da Requiem). Renata Scotto, Vasil Stefanov, Chorus of the Bulgarian National Radio [live Sofia 1976]
Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Tom Hammond [English translation]: Sei’n wir wieder gut… Musik ist eine heilige Kunst [sung in English] (Ariadne auf Naxos). Janet Baker, Malcolm Donnelly, Norman Del Mar, Scottish Chamber Orchestra [live Glasgow 24.XI.77]
Thomas Dunhill, Anonymous poet: To the Queen of Heaven. Janet Baker, Martin Isepp [1963]
Henry Purcell, Nahum Tate: Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment (Dido and Aeneas). Janet Baker, John Pritchard, London Philharmonic Orchestra [live Glyndebourne 1966]
William Walton, Christopher Hassall [after Geoffrey Chaucer]: How can I sleep? (Troilus and Cressida). Janet Baker, Lawrence Foster, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden [live 30.XI.76]
Claudio Monteverdi, Giovanni Francesco Busanello, Geoffrey Dunn [English translation]: Did I please you my Lord? [Come dolci, signor] (The Coronation of Poppea). Janet Baker, Robert Ferguson, Raymond Leppard, Sadler’s Wells Opera Orchestra [live 27.XI.71]
Johann Sebastian Bach, Picander [Christian Friedrich Henrici]: Ich folge dir nach (Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, BWV 159). Janet Baker, Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, The St. Anthony Singers [1966]
Jean-Philippe Rameau, Simon-Joseph Pellegrin [after Jean-Baptiste Racine]: Je ne te reproche plus rien… Cruelle mère des amours (Hippolyte et Aricie). Janet Baker, Anthony Lewis, English Chamber Orchestra [1966]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Caterino Mazzolà [after Pietro Metastasio]: Parto, parto (La Clemenza di Tito). Janet Baker, Martin Isepp [live New York 02.XII.66]
Vincenzo Bellini, Felice Romani, ater William Shakespeare: Vieni, ah, vieni! (I Capuleti e i Montecchi). Janet Baker, Beverly Sills, Giuseppe Patanè, New Philharmonia Orchestra [1975]
Johannes Brahms, Klaus Groth: O wüßt’ ich doch den Weg zurück [Heimweh II], Op. 63/8. Janet Baker, Ernest Lush [BBC 16.IX.1960]
Maurice Delage, Gérard Labrunie [after Heinrich Heine]: Lahore [Un sapin isolé] (Quatre poèmes hindous). Janet Baker, Bernard Keefe, Melos Ensemble [Lamar Crowson, Richard Adeney, William Bennett, Gervase de Peyer, Stephen Trier, Emanuel Hurwitz, Ivor McMahon, Cecil Aronowitz, Terence Weil] [1967]
Ottorino Respighi, Roberto Ascoli [after Percy Bysshe Shelley]: Aretusa, Op. 95. Janet Baker, Richard Hickox, City of London Sinfonia [1992]
Gustav Mahler, Folk poetry collected by Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano: Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Des Knaben Wunderhorn). Janet Baker, Martin Isepp [BBC 21.IV.66]
Gioacchino Rossini, Jacopo Ferretti [after Charles-Guillaume Étienne]: Non più mesta (La Cenerentola). Janet Baker, Martin Isepp [live New York 1969]