Of the world's many current divisions, one of the odder is the operatic one. More American singers are finally making their careers at home, but perplexingly, fewer of Europe's top singers hop the pond; of the ones that do, fewer yet ford the Hudson. That was far less true during the Cold War. Recordings come to the rescue again.
While Alan Curtis was still a professor at UC Berkeley, his fellow music department faculty members grumbled about his going to Europe to make his career as an early-music opera "impresario." But the out musician and scholar could not have done otherwise, and some of the rare gifts he brought home �" the modern premiere of Landi's Il Sant' Allesio and the world premiere (you read that right) of the 17th-century Antonio Cesti's Semiramide, both in Hertz Hall �" brought him as much derision as praise. His sudden death in Florence last year is still felt in the early-music world, and the archival vaults are giving up some previously unreleased material.
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has just released the last "studio" (read, Italian villa) recording I'm aware of, Mitologia, featuring arias, duets and some incidental music from Handel operas, cantatas and oratorios recorded in 1912. Mezzo-soprano Romina Basso, one of the staples in his consort Il Complesso Barocco, is a major presence, but the focus is on Bavarian soprano Christiane Karg, a perfect example of the kind of stellar singer Curtis tapped early on, completely fresh-voiced before post-Mozart music, particularly opera, took them away. Karg's sole appearance to date Stateside was in a concert with other singers at Carnegie Hall earlier this year, but Mitologia will explain why she's such a cherished singer in Europe today.
Her silvery soprano is, if not exactly a light instrument, a consistently intimate one. It's a true soprano that's in no way "about" high notes; instead, it's a true, agile voice with an inclination toward what can only be called radiance. The coloratura in two arias from Semele (only one of them, "No, no, I'll take no less," actually Semele's) is nimble and accurate, but throughout the recording, which makes generous use of the Handel pastiches Curtis increasingly came to favor, you can feel her saving herself for a phrase or passing note on which she could work the wizardry of her bright �" but in no way coquettish, such an easy default for singers of her voice type �" personality. This is "easy" mythology, more Ovid than Homer or Aeschylus, and Karg brings it to sparkling light, over Curtis' choice instrumental ensemble on its best behavior.
She's also the centerpiece of the most recent release in the indispensible Wigmore Hall Live series, a recital with Malcolm Martineau, as good a Lieder pianist as we have at a time rich with them, from a recital of Schumann and Brahms on November 18, 2014. The first half of the recital is Schumann, balancing four songs of Clara Schumann that Karg has taken so solidly into her repertoire that at last they have the resonance we've all "leaned it" to hear in them with Robert's Frauenliebe und �"leben. Those songs, a cycle of reflections by a wife whose relationship to her husband becomes ever deeper, came close to falling out of favor for its putatively passe sentiments. If anything turned that false impression around forever, it was also a recital at Wigmore Hall with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who lent them the same depth she gave Mahler, and I don't mean Alma. There's no tearing of the curtains and upholstery with Hunt Lieberson, just depths of feeling even the cycle's most devoted adherents had not suspected.
There's measurably less Anna Karenina in Karg's Frau, but it's no less interior and involving. As Hunt Lieberson did in her recital (both women have other essential recordings on the Wigmore Hall series), Karg balances the fare with a Brahms second half, rich with variety and sung with an ear to the proto-chromaticism of Brahms' harmonies. It so happens I'm listening and writing on the night of the Supermoon, and having looked and admired, I can say that it pales next to the last Brahms song, "Mondnacht" in Karg's penetrating performance.
If Karg is new to you, Portrait (Berlin Classics), a new compilation issue assembled by Karg herself, is an ideal introduction. There are opera excerpts by Gretry, Mozart and Gluck, all rendered with rich character and a keen feeling for style, a concluding Mendelssohn concert aria, "Infelice pensier �" Ah, ritorna," a phenomenal, 12-minute stretch of vocal music you're unlikely to know, and Lieder. Throughout, the CD captures the voice in a clean, natural acoustic, where it blooms. Three Strauss songs are showstoppers, in an interior kind of way, and she brings such sorcery, delicacy and interiority to Wolf's "Auf eine Christblume II" and Schreker's "Sommnerfaeden" (a leap beyond even the divine Lucia Popp's) you wonder why we don't hear them, and her, all the time.