Pape is a natural. With a large voice that flows easily and a perfect instinct for the phrase, for dynamics and for drama he is one of the most gifted singers performing today. He is completing 2014 in performances in Macbeth and the Magic Flute and also Tristan and Iseult. No one will ever forget his Gurnemanz in Parsifal.
There was a moment in Parsifal when Pape sang about the annointment of the new King. He said, “I was so moved that I was shaking…it took me several minutes to calm down.” Everyone felt the tension in the air. Pape wa not talking about his singing, but about his reaction to Wagner’s music.
In his selection of songs, it was clear that he was listening and delivering the music of Beethoven and Dvorak, of the composers and their intention. He was not commenting on his own singing.
His program was brave and daring. Beethoven songs which began the afternoon were based on the poetry of Gellert and are a variety of addresses to God. In his commanding presence, and complete attention to emotional implication, Pape showed us how far he can extend dynamic range. Other singers try to pull off the whispered phrase, but only Pape does it perfectly. The stars flickered in the sixth song, and Camillo Radicke accompanied in seamless rhythms.
Pape’s sense of humor is as graceful and compelling as his dramatic range. When applause erupted at an inappropriate place, he glared with a teasing good humor. Rattled by the unfortunate soprano who the Met keeps casting, Marina Poplavskaya, in a recent Faust production, he whispered in her ear so the entire Met audience could hear as she began Marguerite’s famous Jewel Song, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”
Pape is known to be indulgent of women, booze, cigarette, and let’s face it, life. He has said, “I suppose I should be more careful, but on the other hand, you will be good onstage if you live a real life. If you take yourself out of real life and overprotect yourself, you cannot make real music. It will always be fake.”
Pape’s low placement does not sound guttural. It does not wobble. His tones are totally focused. He smiles as he sings, but not because he is amused, but so he can facilitate his technique and keep his tone frontal. His perfect technique is used to produce tonal color as he wants it. He can make his notes round and dark or bright and open. He is relaxed because this is his voice, not one that is made up of many selected pieces, the fault of so many singers today. His vibrato is also natural and pleasing. With hiis superior technique, he explores expression in the service of musicianship.

Pape’s English is first rate. Songs from Shakespeare, by the late 19th century composer Quilter,were delightful. His final encore was a selection was from Camelot. His promise ‘never to leave’ was not kept, but enticed an audience that would never let this great lyric bass go. Pape loves blues and hard rock too. He is a musical polymath.

An Italian artist and an Italian musician joined American choregrapher Jaculyn Buglisi to remember 9/11 and create hope for the future.

The big event originated in Chicago. 

A bang-up birthday celebration for Giuseppe Verdi.  Streamed worldwide, Samuel Raimi was host.  The Maestro spoke in Italian, although he doesn’t ever have to display his chops.  The greatest living conductor of Verdi, and arguably the greatest living conductor, lit all the candles on Verdi’s cake in Chicago on October 10th.  In his pre-concert talk, the Maestro explained why the Requiem was a perfect way to celebrate a birthday.  It is after all about life and living.  The wrenching glories of life are on full display.

The masterful CSO responds to Muti not at all like putty in his hands.  They are making music with him, the most important undertaking.  Charming piccolo solos and surprising beats from the slim Cynthia Yeh on the drums, Richard Chen the concert master whispering and digging deep into his instrument.  The name of every orchestra member is displayed at the concert’s end, a tribute to the Muti resorgimento.

Even if you are not familiar with this Requiem, you appreciate all of its details polished like marble by the Maestro.  But they are not cold like stone, but rather warm, and often hot, in Muti’s hands.  The Requiem thrills.

Since a member of the concert committee in Milan wrote about the Libera Me, “You have written the most beautiful, the greatest, the most colossally poetic page that can be imagined, and Brahms followed up, “Only a genius could write such a work,” the Requiem has been performed as a celebration of life.

While the piece had started as a tribute to Giacomo Rosssini, when his celebration was cancelled, Verdi tucked the score away.  Verdi’s publisher kept begging for performance rights, but the composer replied the piece had no meaning without a Rossini commemoration.

Allesandro Manzoni was a famous 19 century author, who like Cervantes, gained fame by the publication of one book: I Promessi Sposi.  Verdi started to read his poetry at 16, and immediately composed an Ode.  Verdi wrote of Manzoni, “his was not only the great book of our epoch, but one of the greatest to emerge from the human brain.  It is…a consolation for humanity.”   The newly minted Requiem was dedicated to him.

Verdi chose the San Marco Church in Milan for its first performance, probably because its acoustics were wonderful.  Verdi was anticlerical and an agnostic throughout his life, but clearly his music is one path to a God.

He had studied the requiems of Cherubini, Berlioz and Mozart in Paris.  No one had used soloists as an integral part of their compositions.  Mozart composed for four, but made scant use of them.

The soloists take on new importance and in this performance they were to a one magnificent.  Muti takes such care in the blending of the voices.  Ildar Abdrazakov had smoothness to his bass role, sometimes singing from the head and sometimes the chest with a softly yearning quality.

Mario Zefferi, a tenor termed bel canto, pierced through the orchestra with every note in delivered.  Singing through the mask, with a ping that contrasted with his partners on stage, his tone was perfectly beautiful.  Verdi’s own choice for this role was a tenor who had a beautiful voice, but was notably stupid. Zefferi is no ‘pumpkinhead.’  With each entrance and particularly in the consummate Ingemisco, he shone.

Verdi picked contralto Maria Waldman for the role between soprano and tenor.  Daniela Barcellona had that wonderful, rich chest voice often associated with contraltos.  She was billed as a mezzo, and perhaps this is her range: she had some trouble in the lower and upper registers, but in this most demanding of the solo roles, was magnificent.

Both Barellona and Tatiana Serjan, the soprano phenom, have vibratos that match a stringed instrument’s. In some moments Muti conducts, he seems to be fingering a stringed instrument to bring forth texture.  He has clearly picked the two female soloists in marked contrast to their male counterparts: the purity of Zefferi and Abdrazakov’s rounded edges.  The mixture was delicious.

The renown of the Chicago Symphony Chorus is well deserved.  Everyone watching around the world could enjoy a fascinating precision.  The Orchestra collaborates with the Maestro in music making.  When Verdi conducted the Requiem, he welcomed applause between numbers which gave him an opportunity to have encores of the Recordare, Hostias and Agnus Dei.  No such luck in Chicago.  We will have to be content with encore listening to this performance over and over again at cso.org.