Louis Andriessen: Writing to Vermeer
CML call number: CD/OPERA/Andriessen
Personnel: De Nederlandse Opera; Schönberg Ensemble and Asko Ensemble; Susan Narucki, soprano; Susan Bickley, mezzo-soprano; Barbara Hannigan, soprano.
Russell Platt wrote in the New Yorker: "In Louis Andriessen's recent 'Writing to Vermeer,' the personal and political are kept separate. In 1672, Vermeer's wife (the soprano Susan Narucki), his mother-in-law, and his favorite model sit at desks writing fictional letters to the artist while a chorus of young women brings to life the quotidian activities of the household. The opera ends not with Vermeer's eagerly awaited return but with the flooding of the stage. The libretto is by Peter Greenaway, whose penchant for violence is fulfilled in brief electronic interludes (by the composer Michel van der Aa) evoking other events in Holland's 'year of disasters'; these form islands in the flow of Andriessen's post-minimalist music, which is lulling and disturbing by turns. The CD format of this Nonesuch release makes it hard to gauge the opera's ultimate effect, but the performance, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, is incisive, sensual, and alert."
Personnel: De Nederlandse Opera; Schönberg Ensemble and Asko Ensemble; Susan Narucki, soprano; Susan Bickley, mezzo-soprano; Barbara Hannigan, soprano.
Russell Platt wrote in the New Yorker: "In Louis Andriessen's recent 'Writing to Vermeer,' the personal and political are kept separate. In 1672, Vermeer's wife (the soprano Susan Narucki), his mother-in-law, and his favorite model sit at desks writing fictional letters to the artist while a chorus of young women brings to life the quotidian activities of the household. The opera ends not with Vermeer's eagerly awaited return but with the flooding of the stage. The libretto is by Peter Greenaway, whose penchant for violence is fulfilled in brief electronic interludes (by the composer Michel van der Aa) evoking other events in Holland's 'year of disasters'; these form islands in the flow of Andriessen's post-minimalist music, which is lulling and disturbing by turns. The CD format of this Nonesuch release makes it hard to gauge the opera's ultimate effect, but the performance, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, is incisive, sensual, and alert."
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