Opera

A German composer—Aribert Reimann (born in 1936), a creation at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and yet L’intruse is a work composed on a booklet sung in French, even though Reimann simultaneously conceived a version sung in German. But the booklet is based on three short pieces from Maurice Maeterlinck, written in French of course, that are L’Intruse, Intérieur and La mort de Tintagiles, a trilogy gathered under the title L’Invisible. Between restless middle-class realism and fairy-tale mythology, Maeterlinck unveils a disturbing world, filled with death, fate, human helplessness and the vanity of all things. The link between the three pieces, if not textual or dramatic, is made through the use of the same singers, as well still as the appearance in the three volumes of the three servants—three opera countertenors, a most striking sound effect, especially since they represent no less than Death’s messengers. Reimann’s musical discourse, both harsh and deep, moving and rough, takes the listener by the hand from the first minute and only lets it go after ninety minutes full of meaning. You have here the recording made live during its creation in October 1997, with some “surgical taping” recorded afterwards to make up for the moments during which the scenic noise disturbed the listening. If there’s one little drawback, it is that we’ll somewhat regret the too Germanic pronunciation of the French language by most of the soloists… But the album offers the complete French booklet. © SM/Qobuz

It's hard to love these calling-card albums in which young soloists go rummaging through the repertoire for great hits, generally the most hackneyed ones available. But Romanian soprano Elena Moşuc has made hers with flair: her choice of Verdi heroines includes a few classics, sure, (Traviata, Il Trovatore), but there are also rarities like Attila, Aroldo, I due Foscari, the Vêpres siciliennes. These are works that everyone knows of, but where are they performed regularly? Elena Moşuc largely built her career in the Zurich Opera House, where she has played a good number of great heroines, like the Queen of the Night, Gilda, Violetta, Lucia, Mimì, Marguerite, Donna Anna, Konstanze, Zerbinetta, Norma, Nedda, Lucrezia Borgia, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Desdemona – showing a clear preference for characters from Italian opera. © SM/Qobuz

It's inescapable: love him or hate him, Steve Jobs was a real character. By turns a visionary, an inventor, a despot, a manipulator, he took his computer business to the top of the industry. Long a public figure, he is now a character in an opera, brought to life brilliantly by Mark Campbell and composer Mason Bates, two great explorers of the most offbeat corners of American lyric art. Their opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs , first performed in 2017 in Santa Fe, presents the IT magnate and his inner circle around the time of the foundation and development of their business, his friends and his enemies, all in an extravagant musical language, in which Bates introduces a leitmotif for every new character and situation, with instrumental colours, dedicated themes, and also interjections of electronic sounds, from – you've guessed it – computers and mobile phones made by the firm itself. There's also some jazz thrown in (the symphonic jazz of Bernstein or Gershwin), and some very progressive rock, with atonalism and chromatism, as well as Adams-style minimalism. Bates stays firmly within the realm of classical lyricism, because his modernity has nothing to do with avant-gardist destruction: rather, it's a new creation based on existing elements being used in a thoroughly original and personal way. This recording was made at the world première in Santa Fe in summer 2017. © SM/Qobuz