Tag Archives: Puccini

Joe Jackson

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Joe Jackson was initially associated with the ``New Wave" of pop/rock music of the late 1970s and early 1980s (Blondie, the B52s, Elvis Costello, Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc…) that followed quickly on, and was often influenced by, the 1970s onslaught of punk, but he's quite eclectic in style, even drawing from experience in jazz and classical music from the outset of his career. I'd neglected him somewhat in my listening until recently, although like most people alive (at least in the USA) in the early 1980s I was familiar with the hit ``Is She Really Going Out With Him?" even if not its author and performer. I quite enjoyed a vinyl copy of his album Body and Soul, which features a largeish band and often-jazzy or musical-theater influenced arrangements, especially first track `The Verdict', which opens with a slick brass-and-reeds fanfare. On more recent listening (streaming in HD), I still liked it, although I don't recall much detail past The Verdict. I haven't listened to his entire output, but will here log the current state of my investigations.

My favorite album of his so far is Volume 4, credited to the Joe Jackson Band. I'd say it's a minor masterpiece. I tend to lean towards catchy melody and relatively emotionally involved lyrics; keeping that in mind, my favorite songs on the album are `Still Alive ' `Chrome', and `My Blue Flame'. Still Alive opens with a chiming guitar figure (5 1 4 1 3 1 4 1 2 1 4 1 4 3 2 1 in major --- or if you prefer solfege, Pa Sa Ma Sa Ga Sa Ma Sa Ga Sa Ma Sa Ma Ga Re Sa) that perfectly conjures up a certain 60s pop-rock guitar feel, and the vocal reprises this figure but then goes in a rather different musical direction... then, typically for Jackson, a denouement, or at least change of tone, in the lyrics is accompanied by a catchy-as-hell change of harmony and descending melody, with `I know I said I couldn't live without you but I'm still alive". As often with Joe, there may be points where the lyrics get a tad too cute, but still this song---like the other two I singled out---is candy. `Chrome' seems to concern a crush who has become a star... after a somewhat pensive verse, a sudden and faster (the backing tempo stays constant) "Guess I was wrong" (and come to notice it, on the same dramatic descending notes (4321, in major) as "I'm still alive" (4 4 3 2-1) from Still Alive) introduces the chorus: "Now you shine like chrome / You're a star and bold like chrome / And from Tokyo to Rome / We're all aware of you", which is repeated with the last couplet changed to "And I'd like to take you home / But I'm scared of you." I perceived all three of these songs (and many of the others on the album, especially Love at First Light, and Little Bit Stupid ("You know what they say about Cupid") and perhaps even "Awkward Age") as addressed to the same person. My Blue Flame similarly involves an ex-lover, or maybe just crush, who is cold but again there is a change in mood to a somewhat anthemic chorus: "There's a blue flame inside of you so beautiful and rare ... You'd be so hard to love if love was not just there." Pretty sentimental but it works. If you're cold to these three songs, you probably don't like Puccini either, and that's fine, I guess. To make another classical vocal analogy, I'll liken some of Jackson's writing to the songs of Richard Strauss, which often used some pretty purple poetry, often not quite of the first rank, and could be extremely sentimental. "Morgen", "Allerseelen", or in fact almost all the songs I'm familiar with are quite sentimental , but also extremely effective and dramatic as songs, with striking and sometimes somewhat lush harmonic effects. There is apparently a body of more humorous songs by Strauss that are not much sung---if one is to trust the great accompanist, pianist Gerald Moore, it's because they're not very good. Here too there might be a bit of an analogy with Jackson...his humorous songs seem to me a bit weaker than his romantic ones---although I would not deprecate them as Moore does Strauss' humorous songs, and indeed one should note that there's quite a bit of ironic humor leavening the sentimentality in most of Jackson's romantic songs.

Not that the other songs on Volume 4 aren't mostly excellent too. The opening `Take it Like a Man" works quite well musically, hard-hitting bright medium-uptempo piano-driven new wave, but I find the lyrics a bit inscrutable and the line "take it like a man" a bit offputting (and the "ah-ooo" a little too cute...like it was pinched from Warren Zevon's `Werewolves of London') though maybe I'm just not getting the point. `Awkward Age' is bouncy and uptempo, and relatively sunny-sounding, the most reminiscent of relatively mainstream 1980s New Wave sound perhaps, Love at First Light seems to be about the possibility of something more significant growing out of a one-night stand...a nice song but melodically perhaps less distinctive than Alive, Chrome, or Flame, with a mellower and sunnier, more lullaby-like feel, at a medium tempo... also excellent. `Fairy Dust' is an uptempo rocker that seems to be a bit of a dig at people trying to be hip by engaging superficially with gayness (Jackson identifies as bi, I believe). Dirty Martini is a rocker, somewhat slight perhaps but maybe fitting into the overall picture by depicting a reaction to romantic disappointment ("too many olives and too much gin"). Thugz'r'Us is a catchy, perhaps somewhat cheap shot at (probably) white wannabe B-boyz ("Thuz 'r Us, Thugz 'r Us, wearing hoods and baggy trousers on the bus"), and doesn't much fit into an overall theme for the album although I guess it's something of a pair with Fairy Dust in a way. 'Bright Grey' is an uptempo, slighty thrash-y song about he/she dissonance, with some dissonant chords thrown in for subtlety, and an uptempo backbeat (snare hits on 2 and 4) you'll recognize from countless alt-pop-rock songs of the 00's and later. It's also quite good.

My other current favorite album by Jackson is his 1979 debut, Look Sharp. `One More Time' is sharp and punchy if lyrically bitter new wave, `Sunday Papers' is a bit nasty and trite in spots, but extremely catchy, its reggae or ska reminiscent, slightly herky-jerky backbeat. `Is She Really Going Out With Him' deserved its hit status. The hook in the chorus of `Happy Loving Couples' ("Happy loving couples make it look so easy") seems to me nearly identical with the melody to the words "They say you better listen to the voice of reason" (and "They don't give you any choice 'cause they say that it's treason") from Elvis Costello's `Radio Radio', which hit in 1978 in Britain and was written and already performed in 1977, and parts of the verse sound like they're from a Costello song too, but it's a pretty good song with its own identity nevertheless. As the reminders of early Costello might suggest, this record has the most consistent new wave rock feel of Jackson's work among the albums I've checked out. The song quality is consistently very high, and it's strongly recommended.

The follow-up I'm The Man, also from 1979, just didn't move me on first listen; the melodies just didn't seem as distinctive as on Look Sharp or Volume 4. I may give it another try but for now it's not on my recommended list. I had a similar reaction to Night and Day but again am not sure I've given it a fair chance. Both of these albums are highly lauded by some. Beat Crazy didn't move me overall either, since I found it too melodically weak overall, despite being the most ska and reggae influenced of his albums, although a few of the songs are catchy...`Battleground ' with its Linton Kwesi Johnson influenced dub poetry style, for instance, though you might find the lyrics (another song about black-culture-appropriating wannabes) a bit trite, and also not dig the use of the N-word.

As far as more recent Jackson goes, I found 2019's Fool pretty good on a first listen, though not of the high caliber of Look Sharp and Volume 4. Dips into each of the 2015 Fast Forward and the live 1986 Big World also seem promising.

Lucevan le stelle: Tosca at Santa Fe

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The stars, seen at intermission from the exterior loggia at the Santa Fe Opera two nights ago, were shining over the Sangre de Cristo mountains, through the gaps between the clouds remaining after a typical New Mexico late summer evening shower.  And they were definitely shining onstage in a performance of Puccini's Tosca.

Tosca is one of the great operas.  (If, like Benjamin Britten and Berkeley musicologist Joseph Kerman, you're one of the doubters on this score, I may address your doubts in another post, but now is not the time.)  And the Santa Fe Opera put on a great performance of it two nights ago.  Not a perfect one, but a genuinely great one.  The sets were a bit unorthodox, with the church setting of act I portrayed with the dome suspended globe-like, its coffered, gilt-highlighted interior toward the audience, at the rear of the stage, which was open to the pinon-covered hills and more distant mesas and mountains of New Mexico.  Stage right and left, chapel gates lined the church aisles, scaled down toward the back for artifical perspective.  And rising ramp-like from front center, the huge painting on which Mario Cavaradossi is working---while standing on it---for most of the first act.  Unorthodox, but very effective.

Brian Jagde (who replaced Andrew Richard, who had been scheduled for this season) sang Cavaradossi with elegant but unfussy phrasing, and a voice that was not huge, nor over-the-top dramatic, but handsome and focused, with a good core and excellent intonation, well suited to the part overall if a bit restrained at times.  Below, I say more about why he is a really superb artist.  Amanda Echalaz, from Durban, South Africa, has been getting some rave reviews for her Toscas at Covent Garden, the English National Opera, and elsewhere.  Her voice is perhaps a bit far over on the dramatic side, rather than lyrical, to be perfectly ideal for the part which seems to me to require equal measure of both.  It is produced with a lot of vibrato, and at least in the first act's scene of love, jealousy, and flirtation, some measure of distortion or strain in high, loud notes---which somewhat paradoxically, seemed to mostly disappear in the dramatic, no-holds-barred extended confrontation with Scarpia that is the second act.  Her acting was superb, and the less-sweet side of her voice does emphasize the possibly more worldly side of Floria Tosca, who is after all a woman in show business (an opera singer, in fact!) at the turn of the 19th century, so the first act did have plenty of humor, tension, and drama.  But she really came into her own in the second act.  With Thomas Hampson playing a relatively suave and controlled but thoroughly despicable Scarpia, singing with effortless control and refined phrasing in a deep, honeyed baritone---no hammy villain he---this was unquestionably a highlight of the season at Santa Fe---as it would have been anywhere.  Echalaz responded to each new piece of calm but implacably studied coercion, each newly revealed depth of evil, with more and more frenzied alternation of despair and rage, masterfully paced and not overdone, at the end almost like a lioness in the cage of Scarpia's office.  And as Scarpia finds out, you don't want to be in a cage with an enraged lioness, especially if you are threatening one of her loved ones. The choral scene at the end of the first act should be singled out too...it's essentially a dark credo sung by Scarpia, with a hugely effective minor modal melody slithering up and down behind him, the orchestra providing a dirgelike, menacing 2/4 groove, and sacristans, priests, church officials piling on in a Te Deum along with a superb boy choir.

There was plenty more excellent singing, and of course fabulous music, in some of the love arias in acts I and III.  Tosca's aria Vissi d'arte (I lived for art, I lived for love") also stood out.    But the high point of this performance, and it was very high, was an aria that may well be the crux of the opera --- Cavaradossi's solo "E lucevan le stelle" ("And the stars were shining", or more literally, "and the stars shone"), in act III.  Waiting to be executed, he recalls how the stars were shining the night he met Tosca, the creaking of the garden gate as she comes to him, her sweet kisses and languid caresses, and so forth... ratcheting up to "That time is gone, I die in desperation.  I have never loved life as much as I do now!"  There have been some great versions of this aria.  Often the emotionalism, the remembered passion and the despair at oncoming death, are heavily underlined by the vocal interpretation, with massive rubato in places, changes in dynamics, a sensation that notes are being tossed or wrenched out into the air.  Under control, this can make for a very effective interpretation.  Roberto Alagna is among the farthest to this end of the continuum among successful interpretations; Giuseppe di Stefano much less so, depending on the performance.  In the superb 1956 La Scala performance with Victor de Sabato conducting and Maria Callas as Tosca (available on CDs from EMI) di Stefano is impassioned but relatively controlled except for some (in my view unfortunate) minor sob/breakdown vocal effects at the very end.  At Santa Fe, Jagde was at the opposite end of the spectrum---with vocal histrionics to a minimum, full, legato phrasing and musical beauty prioritized.  Emotionally, the beauty of remembered times with Tosca predominated, and the final "I have never loved life so much" ("Non ho amato mai tanto la vita!") resonated more than the immediately preceding "I die desperate!" ("muoio disperato").  The music does more than enough to convey the pathos of the situation; Jagde's smooth, focused, firm and centered but not at all harsh or hard, and very slightly dark, voice, and supremely musical phrasing was perfect for this interpretation, and the effect was devastating, perhaps even more effective than a more highly wrought rendition.  It is hard to know---and doesn't much matter---whether this judgement would hold up on listening to a recording, but subjectively, in its effect in context in this live performance, this was one of the greatest pieces of opera singing I've ever been privileged to hear.  It brought down the house.  Crucial to this aria's impact, of course, was the foundation provided by the singing and acting of the leads earlier in the opera, especially the Tosca-Scarpia confrontation by Echalaz and Hampson in Act II.    (If you're curious what Richards might have sounded like had he been able to make it to Santa Fe this season, you can hear Richards sing Stelle in an August 2008 performance at the Bregenzer Festspiele; try to ignore the sobbing in the minute of lovely music that precedes the aria, and following it (although it's indicated in the score, it's overdone here), and you'll get an idea of how Richards sings this. Except for the histrionics, calmer and more centered than most of what you'll find for this aria, and quite beautifully sung...not that far from Jagde's interpretation, actually, though Richard's voice is a bit larger and deeper and his singing just a little less legato.)

Lucevan le stelle is preceded by a long orchestral interlude with Cavaradossi alone on stage, rather Debussyan in some of its harmony and moodiness, although with a bit more standard harmonic motion underneath.  This is probably the place to mention that the orchestra, conducted by music director Frederic Chaslin, played superbly throughout.  Very clear, almost transparent textures much of the time, supple phrasing, excellent timbres from the individual instruments, delicacy when needed but also a tasty bite and crunch from the brass and percussion when appropriate, and plenty of lushness, menace or power as required (which in Tosca, is often).  I've been to the opera at Santa Fe quite a bit over the years and overall this season the orchestra is probably playing the best I've ever heard them play.

When Tosca arrives on the scene just before the execution, which she believes will be faked as Scarpia had promised, the interaction between her and Cavaradossi is not the transcendent love duet that publisher Ricordi had apparently tried to talk Puccini into; Puccini defended this choice on dramatic grounds, and I'm inclined to agree.  There was no letdown musically, vocally, or dramatically, though, as the opera swiftly moved to its [SPOILER ALERT ;-)] dire conclusion.

Santa Fe made a great move here in engaging three major stars---one, Echalaz, relatively newly minted as a star through her replacement of Angela Gheorgiu as Tosca at Covent Garden in 2009, another, Hampson, relatively far along in his illustrious career but portraying Scarpia for the first time and the third, Richards, relatively unknown to be before this but to judge from credits in major roles at places like the Met and La Scala, somewhere near the peak of an important career.  And even though only two of them could make it to Santa Fe in the end, the less well-known Jagde really came through, in this performance, as Richards' replacement.  With excellent support from the orchestra, chorus, and supporting singers, and by engaging fully with each other vocally and dramatically, Jagde, Echalaz and Hampson put over Tosca not just as the highly emotional and musically lush potboiler it is easy to see it as, but as the---to be sure, highly emotional and musically lush---masterpiece it really is.