Dawn Upshaw

“Supremely "real" is Sherrill Milnes's performance of the title-role. He is a singing actor with natural command of the stage, and what the filming shows to most moving effect in the face, marvellously responsive, especially as the brief moments of happiness are reflected in those deep-set-eyes.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“not surprisingly, Sherrill Milnes's Boccanegra is totally memorable, sung and acted completely within a believable human characterisation...Add to this the characteristic Met production values, with a superb chorus and more than excellent orchestra under the inimitable and always reliable James Levine...'Live from the Met' usually means something special, and it does here.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

L’amour de loin was named “Best New Work of the Year” by The New York Times in 2000

“Since its premiere in 2000, Saariaho's first opera has been widely performed, and won universal plaudits. It's a simple tale, based on the real-life troubadour prince Jaufré Rudel, who falls in love with the Countess of Tripoli without ever having met. Visually, it is stunningly austere, with two tall spiral staircases, one at each side of the stage, and the black space in between covered with water representing the sea. Finley as Jaufré has melodies which grow out of songs by the actual 12th-century troubadour-they're fascinatingly tinted by Arabic... Saariaho wrote the part of the Countess for Upshaw - she has more widely-ranging melodies, sung with complete confidence and conviction... And Groop as the Pilgrim is as fine a singing actor as the other two: much is shot in close-up, and you can feel the total involvement of all three protagonists. ...this is an incredibly beautiful and moving experience.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005

“'An opera by John Adams' says the packaging. Not quite. This is the composer's multi-cultural, post-feminist, quasi-minimalist take on Handel's Messiah, drawing on sources ranging from the pre-Christian prophets to 20th-century Hispanic women writers. While designed to allow fully staged productions, the concept and its musical realisation bring us closer to oratorio. Adams's musical language is predictably inclusive. There's a prominent role for three Brittenish countertenors, Broadway and popular idioms are more or less willingly embraced, and the use of repetition is sometimes reminiscent of Philip Glass in his heyday. El Niño's sound world is delicate and lustrous, and, although Part 1 can seem a mite static with a surfeit of vocal recitative, there are fewer longueurs in Part 2. If not perhaps the unqualified masterpiece acclaimed by some critics, this is an effective and often truly affecting score: derivative, to be sure, yet obstinately fresh.
The performance as such is pretty much beyond criticism. The main characters are on top form, combining absolute vocal assurance with dramatic flair – and none more so than Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. The crisp DVD images certainly help explain the sensational impact of the European première, a multimedia extravaganza from Peter Sellars' top drawer in which dance and film interact quirkily with the exertions of chorus and soloists. If you haven't yet acquired a player, the remarkable success of El Niño is as good a reason as any to take the plunge. Strongly recommended.
The Death of Klinghoffer The Death of Klinghoffer Sanford Sylvan bar Leon Klinghoffer Stephanie Friedman mez Omar James Maddalena bar First Officer Thomas Hammons bar First Officer Thomas Young sngr Molqui Eugene Perry bar Mamoud Sheila Nadler mez Marilyn Klinghoffer London Opera Orchestra Chorus; Lyon Opera Orchestra / Kent Nagano Nonesuch b 7559-79281-2 (135' · DDD · N/T) F How many living composers do you suppose would happily watch their scores lead a short life, relevant but finite? Not many; but John Adams might be one. First Nixon in China, then The Death of Klinghoffer: rarely before has a composer snatched subjects from yesterday's news and made operas out of them. Admittedly, themes of lasting significance lurk beneath this work's immediate surface: conflict between cultures and ideologies, rival claims to ancestral lands, human rights in general. Specifically, however, it takes us back no further than October 1985, when Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro and murdered wheelchair-bound passenger Leon Klinghoffer.
The opera guides us through those events, albeit in an oblique fashion. Whatever the long-term fate of the opera, Alice Goodman's libretto certainly deserves to be spared from oblivion. It's eloquent and beautiful, compassionate and humanitarian, rich in imagery and spacious in its sentence-structure. If TheDeath of Klinghoffer finally disappoints, it's because the marriage of words and music is so fragile. The opera's musical language is firmly rooted in tradition, but it's doubtful if anyone will come away from it with a memorable lyric moment lodged in the mind. The recording uses the cast of the original production, and contains no weak links. As you expect from Adams, the score has been superbly orchestrated, and it's done full justice by the Lyon Opera Orchestra.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010