Ann Hallenberg’s newest disc with The Mozartists is the results of her lengthy and fruitful relationship with conductor Ian Web page

Ann Hallenberg, The Mozartists, Ian Web page recording Gluck Arias (Photograph: Ben Ealovega)

Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg has a brand new album out. For Gluck Arias on Signum Classics, she joined forces with conductor Ian Web page, with whom she has had a protracted and fruitful relationship, and The Mozartists for a programme of arias from Gluck’s operas, each recognized – Orfeo ed Euridice, Paride ed Elena – and unknown – Il trionfo di Clelia, Ipermestra, Ezio, Il Parnaso confuso, Semiramide riconosciuta, and Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe. The operas stretch proper throughout Gluck’s profession from his first full surviving opera, Ipermestra (1744), to Paride ed Elena (1770). Their choice takes in each the unique 1762 model of Orfeo ed Euridice and the hardly ever carried out revised model Gluck produced for Parma in 1769. The disc has already obtained plaudits within the press with the Gramophone referring to it as “this skilfully curated exposition of Gluck’s humane genius“. 

Ann Hallenberg, The Mozartists, Ian Web page at Wigmore Corridor in 2016

Ann explains that the concept of the disc has been effervescent away for round ten years. Again in 2016, she carried out at Wigmore Corridor with Ian Web page and the Mozartists, once they included a few Gluck arias. These went down effectively, and each Ann and Ian thought this could be a disc. Their relationship developed subsequently; not solely has she carried out with The Mozartists once more (together with at Wigmore Corridor in 2023), however when she was artist in residence at Drottningholm, she invited Ian to conduct the manufacturing of Handel’s Ariodante with Ann within the title function. She feedback that it’s good to fulfill a conductor the place you each suppose the identical manner, so that you shouldn’t have to debate every thing. Issues move very simply with him.

They began with way more materials than can be wanted for a disc, sifting by way of the arias, checking that not solely was the music appropriate for Ann’s voice however that she favored the aria. Typically with recital discs, she explains that the choice should take account of the devices obtainable, however this time there have been no such restrictions. She had the posh of singing with a full orchestra. The consequence, she feels, is an effective programme with combine of various sounds and colors.

She has solely been in a position to sing a few Gluck’s roles on stage, primarily Orfeo and Alceste, although she laughingly informed me about singing within the refrain for Iphigenie en Tauride at Drottningholm again in 1992. This led us into a short diversion as I had seen Blackheath Halls Opera performing the work the earlier night time [see my review].

One of many issues with Gluck is that for those who take out the three Reform opera – Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste, Paride ed Elena – which have been a bit particular for Gluck [read more in my feature about Reform opera], Ann feels that the rest of his works are a bit tough to craft on stage. The operas sit between Baroque and Classical. She factors out that we all know the foundations for the operas of Handel and Vivaldi, and for Mozart. However Gluck’s operas, which come between them, stay uncharted territory and it may be laborious work to make the items come alive on stage. Ann loves Gluck, however feels that this issue is why the operas will not be usually staged. The plots stay largely Baroque; Gluck would set librettos by Metastasio, together with 5 of the works on the disc. But the music has moved on, nearer to the Classical period.

Ann Hallenberg within the title function of Handel’s Ariodante at Drottningholm Palace Theatre (Photograph: Mats Bäcker)

Within the UK, we somewhat affiliate Ann with Baroque repertoire, and although the music she sings is wider than that, the centre of gravity of her repertoire tends in the direction of the Baroque. However she can be recognized for her Mahler, has been singing plenty of Berlioz and sings Rossini’s operas. She doesn’t really feel restricted by the best way the main focus of her performances could be on Handel, however she does level out that the restrictions can usually be that she is restricted to performing the issues individuals know. When offered with uncommon repertoire and lesser-known contemporaries of the good composers, individuals shrink back. The issue will not be a lot the viewers, however that some promoters and venues are reluctant to belief the viewers and the performers, although she admits that some do.

She enjoys singing the extra symphonic repertoire, however finds that in Nineteenth-century opera, audiences can have a somewhat mounted opinion of how issues ought to go. With Rossini, as an example, she finds that plenty of audiences can have a view of the works that’s based mostly on how the operas have been carried out through the Rossini revival of the Forties and Fifties. However when performing these operas, Ann returns to the music and bases her efficiency on that. She has carried out plenty of Rossini however admits that she has turned down engagements the place her efficiency may not fulfill the preconceptions of the viewers. She factors out that you probably have grown up with a specific recording, then it may be troublesome to vary your view of how it’s purported to sound.

As a younger singer, she had no considered specialising in Baroque opera;
she had no specialist coaching and didn’t examine at a spot just like the Basel Schola Cantorum.
She merely picked issues up from working with conductors and
orchestras. It helped that she was within the music of the
interval, and it fits her voice together with her fast coloratura and
mezzo-soprano vary. While the mezzo-soprano voice hardly existed in
the Baroque period, she has an identical tessitura to castrato voices, and the
music written for them is an effective match for her.

Her Plan B was to check historical past and archaeology, topics which have at all times her. And she or he feels that her musical method is akin to this as she figures issues out and research what is feasible. She does experiments with the voice, asking if one thing is feasible, very a lot akin to experimental archaeology. And she or he takes this method with the music of all epochs.

As a scholar, she didn’t have a specific plan. She studied on the Royal School of Music, Stockholm, with Kerstin Meyer and Erik Saedén; she undertook additional examine in London with Pleasure Mammen. Early on in her profession, she gave 75 performances within the title function of Bizet’s Carmen, and solely Handel’s Agrippina in her more moderen roles has come anyplace close to this quantity.

Gluck aside, her different present mission is Freezing Italians. This can be a programme with Concerto Copenhagen
and Lars Ulrich Mortensen, celebrating the Mingotti Italian opera
troupe that toured Denmark and Sweden within the 18th century. The Italian
impresario, Pietro Mingotti (1720-1759), created the troupe in Prague in
1732, and so they toured Germany and Austria, and have been invited to
Copenhagen in 1747 by Louise, Queen of Denmark. While the troupe is
recognized about in Denmark and to a lesser extent in Sweden, no-one had
explored them, and she or he turned curious. For a time, Gluck was related
with the troupe. He carried out them in his opera Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe
(which is on Ann’s new Gluck disc) in Dresden for a royal marriage ceremony. Ann
is performing arias from operas composed for the troupe, which they
carried out in Denmark and Sweden, together with music by Sarti, Uttini, Scalabrini, and Chelleri. Although their repertoire additionally included extra
well-known music in pasticcios. A disc is deliberate for subsequent summer season.

Ann Hallenberg (Photograph: Örjan Jakobsson)

The world round these 18th-century opera singers fascinates her. She is aware of what her personal travelling life is like and wonders what it was like at that interval when every thing took longer. The singers nonetheless travelled quite a bit. And one other of her live performance programmes offers with a singer whose travels included performances in Dresden, Venice, Verona after which again to Dresden, that’s two traversals of the Alps, all inside a few weeks. An astonishing feat, she feels. They appeared to journey as a lot as fashionable singers; they knew one another and made friendships. She wonders what life was like for them and admits that if she ever wrote a ebook, it could be on this topic, the realities of a touring singer’s life within the 18th century.

Our discuss wandered onto the topic of recitatives, one of many areas the place an 18th-century singer would have a substantial quantity of labor studying. She commented on Alessandro Scarlatti’s operas, the place the recitatives are so effectively written, although she admits that not all 18th-century operas are that manner. After which there may be Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, whose lovely recitatives actually must be discovered correctly.

As regards roles, she has a tender spot for Handel’s Agrippina, calling her a fantastic character, and Dejanira in Handel’s Hercules comes shut within the favorite stakes. These are sturdy ladies; there are such a lot of issues you are able to do with their fantastic music. She factors out that in most main roles in Baroque opera, you get so many alternative colors to play with as each aria has a distinct face to it – delight, envy, jealousy and so forth – you get to show an entire image of the character. And main roles get plenty of arias, and she or he mentions an opera written by Orlandini the place soprano Faustina Bordone had seven arias. In later operas, the characters are likely to have one or two mindsets; if you’re enjoying an sad princess, then that’s what the music depicts.

After I requested about different favorite roles, she laughingly recommended Scarpia as the final word! However she has loved her Rossini roles, significantly Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri and the title function in Semiramide, although she did significantly benefit from the comedian roles. Within the different path, she highlighted Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea.

Interviewing Ann Hallenberg was a fantastic delight. She is somebody who wears her studying frivolously and, regardless of having nice information and perception, additionally laughs quite a bit. Even over Zoom, the heat of her persona got here by way of.

Ann Hallenberg, The Mozartists, Ian Web page recording Gluck Arias (Photograph: Ben Ealovega)

Gluck Arias with Ann Hallenberg, The Mozartists and Ian Web page was launched on Signum Classics in September – SIGCD921