… BUT BELIEVE IT OR NOT MY SATURDAY NIGHT INCLUDED SOME STEMS TOO ACTUALLY!?!?!

Just kidding about the all-caps. Let's get down to it: I didn't feel well enough on Saturday night to make it down to McCaw Hall for the Wagner Competition, despite having been so anxious to hear the singers. Instead I opted to lend my witch doctoring services to a few close friends who were going to be taking their first psycho-spiritual journey into what I call the Hallways of Always. It's a good thing I was there to help keep things under control; I don't think they were quite prepared for what transpired. There was death and birth and brocade ceilings and towers of kaleidescopic language. You, reader, likely have no idea what I'm talking about—unless you're in the club and see through exactly to what my hints (which I find totally transparent and obvious) imply.

Nevertheless I knew who was going to win the competition just by looking at the photos of the singers slated to perform. Try it: go to the artist photos page, scrutinize the facial features and necks and under-the-jaw areas, and try to guess who would look best on an Aimé Dupont cabinet card circa 1895.

If you guessed Miriam Murphy, you are correct. She was my pick, but it wasn't just about who gives good turn-of-the-20th-century face. Murphy's physical traits from the neck up are clear signifiers of the proper physiological conditions that help produce (and are, in turn, produced by) excellent singing. Of course, I didn't attend, so I have no idea what Murphy sounds like. A baritone, James Rutherford, won the other $15,000 prize and the vote of the audience and the orchestra. But, with all due respect, the operatic world is not at a loss for decent baritones; there's basically only one way to sing as a baritone or tenor and still be able to sing the actual pitches, and that method of approaching, say, the middle and top notes cannot be futzed with, lest the voice break down altogether. There are, however, only two respectable Wagnerian sopranos that I can think of—Christine Brewer and Jennifer Wilson (and they could both stand to temper their tendencies to overdarken and use put-on "resonance"—but they, less so than most sopranos that sing even the lighter repertoire). Perhaps Murphy will be a bright light to a fach sorely lacking in singers that can do it justice.

We'll all get our chance to hear the singers and agree or disagree with the judges' decisions on August 26th at 7:00 PM Pacific, when Seattle's classical music station, KING FM, broadcasts the competition. You can tune in online with Windows Media or RealPlayer.

I've finally found an really excellent open-source video ripping program. That means lots more videos from recitals and other live opera performances. Are y'all clappin' that ass? If not, then get ready (I've some clips from Sonnambula, Semiramide, and Armida, and Poppea slated for the next few weeks).

Today I got around to uploading the final few arias from a recital Ewa Podleś did in her patria of Poland in 1998. You've probably caught bits of it if you've looked her up on YouTube, but I've put all the pieces in order and into a playlist so that you can sit back and watch her flip-top head and listen to her when she goes spelunking in the deep, dark caves of chest voice and sails into those intense top notes (which, appropriately, are not overloaded and over-darkened the way even many mezzos make them today, to their detriment). And of course, there's the gung-ho grace of her coloratura. I get the feeling that in the "Una voce poco fa" (just added today), she's coming from a very real place. But I think my real sense of kinship to her is her fearlessness with gold lamé (which comes into play for every Eastern European and Russian around Christmas, when those people will send out the gaudiest, most ornate and gilded holiday cards).

Enjoy (and be jealous that we get her in Giulio Cesare this season)!

Oh, and if you haven't noticed my upcoming peformance calendar on the right, you should know that I'm attending Seattle Opera's first annual International Wagner Competition tomorrow night. Even if the singers turn out to be less-than-stellar, Seattle Opera deserves a giant applause for stirring excitement with a big new move like this. Speight Jenkins says the company's having money problems, but you'd never know; it's been putting on consistently good shows, with always an excellent star or at least a worthwhile new discovery in the cast and compelling stagework. I hope this new competition puts Seattle even more on the operatic map and re-engages the public in a process that has traditionally been behind closed doors and transports it to the world of (I hate to say it) American Idol. No one can deny the thrill of watching the moment a young person or a novice has suddenly metamorphosed into a true success.

I'll have a full report Sunday.

You may know him as the superbly expressive bass-baritone, but Thomas Quasthoff is also a jazz nut with a penchant for performing McFerrin-like improv vocals. When he was a student, he picked up some extra cash by singing in jazz and cabaret clubs, where he became intimate with the works of Gershwin, Ellington, and the like. America first got a taste of his scat stylings some years back at a secret show he put on while working the Oregon Bach Festival. The pirate recordings from that show are revelatory. Quasthoff's sensitivity to text and delicacy with rhythm in the classical concert setting translate perfectly to the jazz idiom.

But this is probably old news. You heard the final live track—a six-minute jazz improv from a 2004 Berlin concert—from his album The Voice. But—but—have you ever seen him perform jazz? The cunning lingual movements, the ease and playfulness in his gestures and swaying, his interaction with the space around the microphone, the jungle animal mimicry, the crazy person faces?!? Check him out, here with the Spardosen-Terzett on the Fitz Oblong show:

If you haven't had enough, then you'll be delighted to know that he's in the studio with jazz trumpeter and vocalist Till Brönner working on a proper ("pure as glass") jazz album. If cheesy Quasthoff & Friends PBS specials spring to mind, never fear. In a pointed 2000 interview with Norman Lebrecht, Quasthoff had this to say:

To a DG proposal that he should record jazz and cabaret numbers, he replied: 'I may do it some time, but if I do I don't want to sound like "the classical" Thomas Quasthoff. I won't do that kind of Bocelli crossover.'

Zang, Tommy! You may be a little prickly (and rightfully so), but New York (and America) is going to fall in love with you all over again come March. Hell, maybe sooner. Git 'er done, Deutsche-Grammophon!

Ah, love! but a day and the world has changed.

The Opera Blogging Drought of 2006 is beginning to wane. How I survived so many months withought frequent updates from Maury, the Wellsungs, Sieglinde, or Alex Ross I'll never know (or at least reveal).

So now Trrill throws off its summer garb of psilocybic MP3 posts and dons the fall-winter cloak of sumptuous voices, virtuosity, musical and dramatic truthiness, and tons of great media posts. You are cordially invited to welcome Trrill back to the blögôsphère with open arms (wait, what?).

In local news, Seattle Opera has started up its new season with a sumptuous Rosenkavalier, starring Carol Vaness's in her first Marschallin—imagine. It seems Alice Coote is stealing the show as Octavian (going far beyond the mere "English" descriptor the Met has given her). As I'll be attending soon, a review is forthcoming. In the meantime check out the well-lit video preview. I think you'll see that I am in for a wild ride.

Man, it's good to be back.