Wednesday, 29 October 2014

My very first opera evening: "Die Zauberflöte", with Cristina Deutekom


Back in time
This morning I got the message:
Cristina Deutekom (82) overleden. Hebt u haar live horen zingen of een andere mooie herinnering? Laat het weten!
"Cristina Deutekom (82) passed away. Did you hear her singing live, or do you have another nice memory? Let it know!"


Netherlands, the sixties
That was the beginning of searching for more about Cristina Deutekom. I had heard her. Live. Singing the world famous aria's of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute", "Die Zauberflote" on an evening in the concert hall of Eindhoven, Netherlands, somewhere in the late sixtees. In that time it was named Stadsschouwburg, now Parktheater Eindhoven.

(Photo: The original Stadsschouwburg)




                                  


My first opera evening 
Being a student of what is named now "Fontys Hogescholen" or "University College Fontys" but then "Kweekschool", to become a teacher, I was obliged to make choices in the cultural program of the Stadsschouwburg. Without knowing what I chose there was as I remember now, also Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, performed in a special part of the Stadsschouwburg, much smaller than the main hall, Puccini's La bohème, and ballets performed by the National Ballet of the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Dance Theater. The first big stage opera in my life is "Die Zauberflöte".
The smell of a theater, as I remember now also, is very special, becoming stronger when the curtains open. The free dynamic activity of a live performance is wonderful and emotionally nourishing, especially when one is not used to the beauty of theater, concerts, operas. In the sixties even TV was not common, only available for the few, still, though it was a growing market. All in life, and also around music was going to be more affordable, like the vinyl L.P.'s with classical music (Deutsche Grammophon). What do I mean with that: affordable? Being born after the war, in 1948, I have grown up in rather poor circumstances, compared with the luxury and high (even double) incomes and "needs" of families nowadays. There was no money for buying more than the basics in life.
Because of the economical growth which started in the late sixties people could buy more expensive and better devices. The sound became better because of better quality pick ups, and speakers. Also radios produced a better sound, but still far from the perfectionism we are used to know. So, when I heard the first live voices, I was touched, frozen, hypnotized, shocked, all together. When I saw human beings moving around on some square meters named a stage, in special costumes, I was delighted. Their freedom was not ours. We were calm students, of a nuns school.
Cristina Deutekom
Then there was Cristina, singing as I never had heard somebody singing. Her presentation was more than a voice. She was the one she was presenting. Completely the personality with the full inner passion. Not realizing then that I was listening to a new diva, I have absorbed all of that evening and it stayed unveiled till now. Reading about her developments as an opera singer that followed after that evening, I am aware of the high caliber she was and I am proud to have been one of her first listeners when she was singing Mozart's opera. Here some videos with Cristina Deutekom in her role as the Queen of the Night:




 Die Zauberflöte 

Strange for me (I remember) was the choir with singers who were dressed as Egyptians from the time of the pharaohs. I was not prepared on it, nobody told me anything about the opera, and we had no computer to google for it. A lot in the opera was a mystery for me, but what I kept in my memory is Cristina's aria "Die hölle Rache".....
Translated from the Dutch wiki page (the English page does not mention what I read on the Dutch page): "The opera contains some very famous arias, of which the Queen of the Night role ("O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn" and "der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen") with almost unsingable virtuoso coloratura notes, is perhaps the best known. If these notes are well sung, the effect is electrifying. This aria of the Queen of the Night contains the second highest note ever written for an opera: the F3. Only the G3 in the opera 'Esclarmonde' by Jules Massenet exceeds this height."
How interesting to read (in wiki) that the opera is filled with symbolism, also the deeper esoteric symbolism. The opera is obviously based on the Greco-Roman mysteries: mystery religions, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, religious schools of the Greco-Roman world. Participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). My question: Does this mean that Mozart was so much more as a personality than the film Amadeus tries to make us believe he was? Not the ridiculous shameless immature person?
Mozart was also interested in the freemasonry (vrijmetselarij) and alchemy, together with Emanuel Schikaneder, who was the (what we name now) producer of the magic flute.
It would have been nice to have known more about the opera, then, in the sixties, but fact is that now I am so much older (almost fifty years older) I understand more of life, learned more later than the most excellent study of that time (and even of the present) could offer me, with other words: even with the most excellent explanation I would not have understood the opera in its deepest levels. Will I understand it now?  It is time to start studying "The Magic Flute".

The full opera:
Year: 1971
Concert Hall: the Hamburg Opera, Hamburg, Germany
Director: Peter Ustinov
Aartistic direction: Rolf Liebermann.
The production was taken into a TV studio and filmed, using the original sets and costume
Tamino: Nicolai Gedda
Pamina: Edith Mathis
Sarastro: Hans Sotin
Königin der Nacht: Cristina Deutekom
Papageno: William Workman
Papagena: Carol Malone
Monostatos: Franz Grundheber
Speaker: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Two Men in Armour: Helmut Melchert, Kurt Moll

State Opera, conducted by Horst Stein.





Cristina Deutekom, biography

Cristina Deutekom, also known as Christine Deutekom and Christina Deutekom (28 August 1931 – 7 August 2014), was a Dutch coloratura soprano opera singer. She sang with all the leading tenors of her time, including Carlo Bergonzi, José Carreras, Franco Corelli, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Alfredo Kraus, Luciano Pavarotti, and Richard Tucker.


 "La Deutekom" was born in 1931 in Amsterdam as Christine (Stientje) Engel. After some smaller roles, her breakthrough came in 1963, portraying the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Dutch National Opera. She then sang the same role at all major European opera houses and also at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1968. In 1974 she opened the Met season as Elena in I vespri siciliani alongside Plácido Domingo.


Besides the Queen of the Night, her Mozart roles included Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte and Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito. She sang the great bel canto roles, specifically in Rossini's Armida, in Bellini's Norma and I puritani, and in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.


She went on to the great dramatic Verdi roles including Abigaile in Nabucco, Lady Macbeth, Leonora in Il trovatore, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, and Elena in I vespri siciliani. Other roles which were captured in commercial recordings include Giselda in I Lombardi and Odabella in Attila. Finally, she sang the title role in Puccini's Turandot.


Deutekom decided to end her stage career on the last day of 1986, after suffering heart problems during a performance of the opera Amaya in Bilbao. She turned to giving master classes internationally.


She made a return in November 1996 at the Concertgebouw Operafeest, at the age of 65 singing the Bolero from I vespri siciliani and Anna Elisa's aria Liebe, du Himmel auf Erden from the operetta Paganini, reportedly "bringing the house down". As of 2001, she was a guest teacher at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, but after suffering a stroke in 2004, she retired from public life.


 She died on 7 August 2014 after a fall in her home. (wiki information)


Sources and additional information








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