¿Futuro para la ópera en cd?

Un artículo del New York Times sobre el futuro de la ópera en cd.

The Future of Opera on Disc (If It's to Have One)
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
FOR several months before releasing its new recording of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," EMI Classics, in tones both momentous and ominous, stoked stories in the news media that it could well be the last studio recording of a major opera ever made. At least EMI refrained from affixing a label to that effect on the packaging of this deluxe release.

It's not news that the cost of making a studio recording of an opera, let alone a monumental Wagner work, has become prohibitive. The golden days when a Renata Tebaldi was routinely ushered into the studio to record all her major roles in complete versions, sometimes multiple versions, may be over. Today, assembling the necessary orchestral and choral forces, and a cast desirable enough to entice picky opera buffs can easily push the price tag for a project like a new "Tristan" over $1 million. So why did EMI undertake this venture, when there is such a rich legacy of great "Tristan" recordings? The rationale can be summed up in two words: Plácido Domingo.

Mr. Domingo's decisive move into the Wagnerian heldentenor repertory came in 1991, when the Metropolitan Opera mounted Otto Schenk's production of "Parsifal" specifically for him. He was 50 at the time. Since then his portrayals not only of Parsifal but also of Siegmund in "Die Walküre" have been justly acclaimed.

Mr. Domingo's ambition is boundless. Though aching to take a shot at Tristan, he sensibly concluded some years ago that it was too late in his career and he would never have the stamina for a staged performance. A studio recording was the only way he could put his stamp on the role.

To make the project enticing, EMI has surrounded Mr. Domingo with top-notch colleagues. The dynamic conductor Antonio Pappano leads the orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, eliciting a lush, surging account of the score. The Swedish soprano Nina Stemme brings an earthy voice and vulnerability to Isolde. The remarkable German bass René Pape makes a vocally commanding and heartbreaking King Marke. To seal the deal, EMI offers two starry tenors in cameo roles: Ian Bostridge as the Shepherd and Rolando Villazón as the Young Seaman.

Clearly EMI intends this new "Tristan" to be seen as a throwback to the era when, at their best, major studios took the time and spent the money to assemble dream casts that could not have been brought together for staged performances.

Maybe that era, sadly, is gone. Yet hold on. Late last year, Deutsche Grammophon released a new version of "Tristan und Isolde," which pointed to another way of doing things, a practice that has steadily grown in the last 10 years: live recording. Taped at the Vienna State Opera in 2003, this is a gripping and affecting account, blazingly conducted by Christian Thielemann, with the soprano Deborah Voigt in her first stage performance of Isolde, the tenor Thomas Moser as Tristan and a solid supporting cast.

Overall, the history of live recordings is rather shady. Think of all those bootlegged accounts of Maria Callas that once surreptitiously circulated among fanatics. More recently, EMI has been legitimizing those recordings and releasing them, sonically cleaned up as much as possible, in its comprehensive Callas Edition. But through the years there have been many distinguished, well-engineered and perfectly legal live recordings of operas, like the 1977 account of Strauss's "Frau Ohne Schatten" from the Vienna State Opera, with the eminent Straussian Karl Böhm conducting a cast led by Leonie Rysanek as the Empress and Birgit Nilsson as the Dyer's Wife. For many this remains the definitive recording.

Today's digital recording techniques are awesomely sophisticated. As long as engineers have a few complete takes of the opera to work from, they can bring about wonders, replacing a single wrong note with the right one, achieving near-ideal balances, even blotting out audience noise. In orchestral repertory the London Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony have been leading the way with highly successful ventures into producing and distributing their own live recordings. Colin Davis and the London Symphony have even taken on opera, including an award-winning account of Berlioz's epic "Les Troyens," recorded live in concert in London in 2000.

In comparing the two "Tristan" recordings, you cannot ignore the circumstances under which they were made. The recording conditions naturally affected the results.

Since Mr. Domingo's Tristan is the selling point of the EMI release, his work will receive the most scrutiny, as it should. When he announced his intention to record this touchstone role, the most strenuous heldentenor part in the repertory, the idea smacked of hubris. Yet Mr. Domingo, now 64, has been singing so well of late that it's starting to seem a little frightening. What Faustian pact has he made?

But even he concedes that he had to pace himself carefully. He recorded "Tristan" in the London studios of EMI over six weeks, no doubt taking frequent vocally replenishing breaks.

In many ways his performance is a remarkable achievement. Only a tenor of his comprehensive musicianship could have learned this daunting role so thoroughly so late in his career. His singing is, for the most part, burnished, energetic and deeply felt.

Yet it must be remembered that he matured significantly in the roles of Parsifal and Siegmund as he performed them on stage over the years. His Tristan lacks a comparable lived-in quality. Sometimes he sounds almost unnaturally energetic, as if he had just returned from a long break or some days off and was determined to prove something. In places you feel that he substitutes generic vigor for depth.

During the early scene in Act II when Tristan and Isolde, high on the love potion, illicitly meet outside King Marke's castle, Mr. Domingo sings with such vehemence that his sound turns leathery. Yet he brings tenderness and lyricism to the opening stretches of the love duet, which is not surprising: he knows this music, having recorded the complete scene with Ms. Voigt in the studio for a 2000 EMI release, "Wagner Love Duets," conducted by Mr. Pappano.

During the prolonged Act III scene as the dying Tristan deliriously awaits Isolde's arrival, Mr. Domingo puts everything on the line, shifting between halting intensity and frenzied ardor. His countless admirers will want this recording, a capstone to his staggering discography. More hardened Wagnerians may deem it an honorable effort.

The selling points of the Deutsche Grammophon live "Tristan" are Mr. Thielemann's conducting and Ms. Voigt's Isolde. In the right work, when Mr. Thielemann is on, he is hard to top. This is the right work, and is he ever on. The performance is an uncanny balancing act: volatile yet inexorable, intense yet ruminative, by turns highly charged and spacious. Without ever seeming didactic, he reveals the rhetoric of the music: the beginnings, endings and overlappings of phrases and the structural layout of the score.

Ms. Voigt makes an ideal fit in Mr. Thielemann's conception. Some may find her singing lacking in vocal allure. But her radiant power, subtle shadings and Apollonian approach are deeply moving in a different way. And as always with this artist, it's a pleasure to hear a daunting role sung with such accuracy, rhythmic integrity and crisp German diction.

Mr. Moser's Tristan is almost the opposite of Mr. Domingo's. Mr. Moser, American born and nearly 58 at the time of this recording, began in lighter repertory, then moved successfully in midcareer to weightier German roles. In recent appearances at the Met, his voice has varied; it is sometimes firm, sometimes shaky. But he is in good form here, singing with stamina and depth. What he lacks is what Mr. Domingo has in abundance: vocal charisma. Hearing Mr. Moser's portrayal, some Wagner buffs will say, "You see, that's why we need Domingo's Tristan."

The engineering of this live recording seems nearly flawless. The orchestra sounds great; the voices come through vividly. And making live recordings is vastly more affordable than studio equivalents. Clearly this is where the business is heading.

James Levine seems to think so. He has said that given the financial and scheduling pressures that afflict recordings today, he is in no rush to take the Boston Symphony Orchestra into the studio, even if he could entice a major label into a contract. But live recording? That's another story, he said, his eyes lighting up during a news conference when his appointment as music director was announced. And when it comes to opera, the live recording route makes even more sense.