Episode 295. Requiescat
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Today on Countermelody is the first of two memorial episodes paying tribute to singers that we’ve lost just in the past few months. Applying the completely arbitrary rubric of gender, today I am focusing on sopranos (with two mezzo-soprano interlopers); my next episode will carry the memorial torch for all the male singers who’ve recently died. Today’s subjects ranged in age from only 35 to nearly 102 at the time of their deaths, and from Broadway star to early music singer: Jodie Devos, April Cantelo, Lucine Amara, Celestina Casapietra, Christine Weidinger, Elena Mauti Nunziata, Deborah Roberts, and Sanda Şandru; lower-voiced interlopers include Janis Paige, Margaret Cable, and Ruth Hesse. If you know some of these names, you know that you will be some mellifluous serenading; if you don’t, prepare yourself for a wide range of music from Renaissance polyphony to American pop standards, with operatic selections ranging from Donizetti to Falla.
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
George Frideric Handel, John Dryden: What passion cannot music raise and quell (Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, HWV 76). April Cantelo, David Willcocks, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields [1968]
Johnny Green, Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, Frank Eyton: Body and Soul [soundtrack from film short I Won’t Play]. Janis Paige [1944]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Paul Schott [Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Julius Korngold] (after Georges Rodenbach): Glück, das mir verblieb (Die tote Stadt). Lucine Amara, unidentified pianist [Bob Wilson?] [live New York 1990]
Georges Bizet, Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, Jules Adenis [after Walter Scott]: Écho, viens sur l’air embaumé (La jolie fille de Perth). Jodie Devos, Laurence Equilbey, Orchestre national Montepellier Occitanie [live Montpellier 13.V.21]
Gregorio Allegri: Miserere. Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars featuring Deborah Roberts [live Sistine Chapel II.1994; 2005]
William Mathias, Roy Campbell [after St. John of the Cross]: Domine Jesu Christe (Lux Aeterna). Margaret Cable, David Willcocks, London Symphony Orchestra, The Bach Choir [1984]
Peter Warlock, Bruce Blunt: The Frostbound Wood. Margaret Cable, Rosemary Barnes [1992]
Giuseppe Verdi, Salvadore Cammarano [after Antonio García Gutiérrez]: Madre, non dormi… Un giorno, turba feroce (Il trovatore). Ruth Hesse, Corneliu Murgu, Reinhard Peters, Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin [live Berlin 08.V.83]
Richard Wagner: Elsa!… Wer ruft?… Entweihte Götter! (Lohengrin). Ruth Hesse, Karan Armstrong, Edo de Waart, Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele [live Bayreuth 25.VII.79]
Richard Strauss, Josef Gregor: O wie gerne bleib’ ich bei dir (Daphne). Celestina Casapietra, Herbert Kegel, unknown orchestra [radio recording, unknown date]
Gaetano Donizetti, Salvadore Cammarano [after Lockroy [Joseph-Philippe Simon], Edmond Badon: Havvi un Dio… Benigno il cielo arridere (Maria di Rohan). Christine Weidinger, Richard Bonynge, The Polish Symphony Orchestra Cracow [1992]
Vincenzo Bellini, Carlo Pepoli: Son vergin vezzosa (I Puritani). Elena Mauti Nunziata, Vera Magrini, Agostino Ferrin, Enrico Campi, Antonio Pirino, Antonio Votto, Orchestra del Teatro Massimo [live Palermo 1974]
Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica [after David Belasco, John Luther Long]): Ah! m’ha scordata!… Che tua madre (Madama Butterfly). Elena Mauti Nunziata, Sesto Bruscantini, Miguel Gómez-Martínez, Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra [live 17.XI.82]
Manuel de Falla, Fernández Shaw: ¡Alli está! (La vida breve) [sung in Romanian]. Sanda Şandru, Grigore Iosub, Orchestra Simfonică a Filarmonicii din Oradea [ca. 1980]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte [after Pierre Beaumarchais]: E Susanna non vien… Dove sono (Le nozze di Figaro). Lucine Amara, Max Rudolf, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra [1956]
Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier Soon the coach will carry you away (The Little Sweep, Op. 45). April Cantelo, David Hemmings, Benjamin Britten, English Opera Group Orchestra [1956]
Ivor Gurney, John Fletcher: Sleep (Five Elizabethan Songs, No. 4). Jodie Devos, Nicolas Krüger [2021]