Samuel Ramey plays the devil in Nice!

I came back from Nice on Saturday(17TH) at noon in a fantastic mood, feeling somehow regenerated after having met Mephistopheles in person in La Damnation de Faust by the beloved Hector Berlioz.
Direction Musicale : Philippe Auguin
Mise en espace : Yves Coudray
Lumières : Bernard Barbero
Faust : Sergeï Semiskur
Marguerite: Oksana Volkova
Méphistophélès : Samuel Ramey
Brander : Jean-Marie Frémeau
Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice
Chœur de l’Opéra de Nice
Samuel Ramey, this fantastic bass is almost my twin brother and looking at his smart appearance, his piercing and shining eyesight, sharing and feeling his tremendous passion for this role, I felt young again. On Friday night, in 'La Damnation de Faust'he gave us the proof of his eternal youth! In a recent interview in 2010 he said:
"Singers can't really hear themselves that well," "A singer's voice is just like an automobile: You have to have somebody take it in for a 20,000-mile checkup.(...)
"My teacher, when I see him now, we just try to work on things to try to keep the voice from sounding the age that it is," Ramey says. "I just try to bring out what's left of the youth in the voice."
Indeed on friday night(16th), he demonstrated that there is a lot of youth left in his voice. His passion for this music and this role gave energy to the whole cast as soon as he stepped on stage. He sounded terrific with a complete mastering of a role he has been performing for twenty years at least. What a treat!I like this tale, the eight stories and the music in any case, but with him, it was like "paradise' even in hell!
Young Charles Castronovo was Faust, and was not expected so that was a nice surprise too! ( he was replacing Sergeï Semiskur, he must have been informed at short notice, he was following the scores in this semi-staged performance).
I was thrilled again by his subtle rendition and enjoyed the first act, the renewal of nature with the peasants' dances, which will never be shared by him, because he is depressed by all his knowledge and is incapable of sheer happiness. CH.Castronovo was very cautious with all the high pitched notes, and negociated some very fine ones. He was quite loud over the thumping orchestral waves and chorus, he made a real achievement on top of the rocking orchestra, very convincing too. The Russian mezzo, Oksana Volkova, was also at ease vocally, with a wide vocal range and perfect French sounds. Her very slim figure was well matched with the 'neat and tidy' looks of Faust- charles Castronovo. I ravished at her 'Roi de Thulé' (always a hit), and the cello was brilliant too. Brander was good, but very conventional and oldish. (He was Don Gormès in le Cid, with whiter hair than Don Diègue). I would have prefered some one like Eric Martin Bonnet who managed to be witty, having some very personal way of making us actually see this poor rat run along his arms...before being roasted!
The whole story was well lit-up with contrastive reds and blues, it had few moves to the side boxes, one figuring Marguerite's bedroom the other one for the master of ceremony to command the various journeys until the last one for Faust, and the chorus also made some moves on request of Mephostopheles's gestures. It was not at all static and could be followed like eight tales in action. The only furniture were two armchairs on both sides, the Royal looking one for
both Faust in his study and then for Mephisto, the smaller one for Marguerite's dream. A swirl of passion rocked the house! As for Samuel Ramey's voice, even if it slightly wobbled at times, it kept an immense resounding effect and a deep command of the acting. He simply loved it and made his young fellow singers join his passion. He boosted Castronovo when he appeared in part II. Then it gave to this Berlioz piece (which had been a flop at its creation in Paris, 6 December 1846), the jubilant touch it deserves. He simply was grand! I was so happy to be in the audience for Berlioz's Damnation. I always try to attend a Berlioz production, I think I understand and love his music more and more. Of course it is always fascinating to follow a live 'Ride to hell' here both Faust and Mephistopheles were holding to their score-stands (with no scores for Samuel Ramey of course!) pretending to ride their black horses. Faust's singing part is huge, his ode to Nature is a momentum "'Nature immense, impénétrable et fière". Charles Castronovo was convincing and impressive in this colossal part.
My last Damnation was at Marseilles Opera House with a daring Marguerite, Anna Caterina Antonacci, and the same conductor LINK . This time, the four voices were top class and they were all acting this pseudo opera which does not really need to be staged. The orchestra and chorus are part of the imagery: it is all depicted in the music. Each time, I enjoy the sarcastic parts like the"Amen", 'Voici des roses", and "petite Louison ( I have memories of 'Bonne nuit...AH!' sung to me when I was a child!)"the Flea" or the"Rat' tunes! That friday night Samuel Ramey was magnificient in all his hits and the audience was under the spell! Marguerite and Faust have true lyrical romances to sing and they were also very moving, adding the delicate touch to this fairy tale which ends like a nightmare. Being both young and attractive, their meeting was even more credible! The awesome Devil was the center of this performance and I was moved to applaude Samuel Ramey on this provincial stage... forty years of loyal services to this Art form... with all my respect to such a beautiful artist and person, and to Berlioz!
I do hope to see some young singers tackle this Mephistopheles's role in the style Samuel Ramey has been doing it.
I left my friends after an admirative converstion about the artists and Samuel Ramey. They went back stage to greet him (I did not, sticking to my old habit of waiting for the artists at the stagedoor, they did not appear,they had a party after the show, very well deserved!).

It was a very warm night, and I stopped for another drink under the pepper trees, thinking it was such a treat to have seen this performance in Nice, where I was born, where my parents learnt the art of singing too...where my two grandparents families settled so many years ago, and where dear Berlioz stayed to recover and write some music in the Tower of Nice Castle, with a stupendous view on the bay....

Bonne Nuit! LINK- Samuel Ramey "A date with the

Devil"

Just a thought: Cora Vaucaire n'est plus...

I know I have so many posts to try to write for my own sake! (mainly to keep my diary and clarify my emotions about: the two Salzburg performances, Don Giovanni and The Makropulos Affair, then two other performances last week-end in Brussels, the amazing King Roger and the stunning Médée... in Krzysztof Warlikowski's production for the last one, plus the daring Damnation de Faust in Nice just for the sake of seeing Samuel Ramey in his favourite role and listen to Berlioz live with an unexpected Faust sung by Charles Castronovo! (such a delight really).
But when I arrived from Nice ( it is only a bus ride but takes some time) I had the news of the death of a singer I loved when I was studying quite hard. In those days, she was the only artist I saw on stage in Aix in a cabaret recital. I found the money to buy a ticket( I used to go to the cinema a lot, that was quite cheap with students' reductions.)
I knew her songs by heart because she sang Aragon'Prévert et Kosma' mainly and I was fond of them, it was easy to remember and she seemed to be singing from her heart all the time. She was what we refer to as 'chanteuse de caractère' I think, coming from the Fréhel tradition, and of course there is the well-known Juliette Gréco in this family of popular singers. Cora was more discreet somehow and I loved her more. I still love her a lot.
When she sang in the Rex on the Cours Mirabeau, I was so elated to see her. It must have been in 65 or so. My favourite song has always been "La rue s'allume" an unforgettable slow waltz:LINK
'Pourquoi ce soir ne puis-je supporter
l'odeur des roses" (Why, tonight can't I stand the perfume of roses?) There is 'le Bal chez temporel' which has its great seduction too, and the words always in my memory.LINK
Culture box, cora vaucaire tire sa révérence. (she bows out)

From Salzburg with love....

Nothing serious around here!
Very posh and expensive, which made me look for extravagances suiting my turn of mind of the moment. Not far from Mozart's birthplace I saw these, and they rang a bell of course! Figaro's "din din, don don' have been influenced by similar devices.
Then my eyes caught sight of these:

which can only be worn by The Queen of the Night ! (I have become a shoe addict under the influence of my blog friend Willym who is a real one, for my greatest pleasure of reading him(LINK to his latest amazing post, best choice, the banana ones...).
Then, I met a busy friend with his bretzel of course,

I had to put up with the various Wolfie adverts all about the old streets, for almost every thing to be sold, among these:


When I saw the big letters in the distance, I thought to myself" why not"? until I came nearer!




Without my huge love for him, I would have stayed home...

Tempus fugit.

As much as I wanted to express all the negative and scournful impressions I gathered during the televised Le Cid(Massenet) then the live production of it I saw at Marseille Opera House at the end of my season here, I did not manage to actually write about it. It is the biggest 'down' of my season. I would not like to be unfair towards artists like Beatrice Uria Monzon who was actually a very moving Chimene. Roberto Alagna praised himself before hand when he explained in the local press and on tv that he was the only tenor who could make the revival of this role, the scores being so hard...He did not convince me at all, but the House was his as usual. (same reactions of blind admiration when he sang Marius, but not from me.)
Time is running fast, even faster especially when my grandchildren are around, and this summer they came earlier than usual, for our greatest pleasure. So, opera vanished in my mind, a bit... All I can say is that the hype made on this Le Cid revival was not worth what I heard from the orchestra and the cast on the whole; as for the setting it was dreadfully unimaginative and old-fashioned even if it was meant to be Spain in the thirties, under a pseudo franquist regime. I would have prefered a classical atmosphere truer to Corneille's verses with less hints to that kind of fascist period with ridiculous religious and army choirs never on time with the pit somehow on the sunday afternoon I was there.
What I saw in Nice opera house for Elektra was fantastic and worth a televised evening !
I came back from my trip from Salzburg and Munich four days ago to discover the saddest news of all about Salvatore Licitra who was such a generous artist. I never heard him live but any time I listened to him he reminded me of Luciano Pavarotti quite a lot.
I ended my trip in Munich by visiting Dachau under pouring rain, and realised it would have been an unbearable visit in bright sunshine. The emptiness of the site is filled with the memories of all the sufferers, and it is well explained on boards. The museum also gives worthwhile documents which can help younger people to apprehend this utmost human crualty. Still even if the concentration camp is softened by the three religious buildings and the garden of ashes, I felt icy and cold when I crossed the ditch to the two crematoriums.
There it is icy and cold whatever the season is I think.
I was relieved to be on my own.
My stepfather saw the liberation of the camp and witnessed the bombing of Munich by the allies.
In fact, I was not really on my own that afternoon in Dachau.
I had so many childhood memories to confront to the crude reality.
Time is indeed running too fast but will keep the traces of this past because it has to be so. Never to be forgotten, therefore, never again anywhere..