Customer Reviews

Flowering Tree (2 CD)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was very excited to see this CD was finally available, and I jumped on it. I'm happy to say that I'm not disappointed. Adam's writing is both energetic and gorgeous, as ever. An equal to "El Nino", easily. Superior to "Klinghoffer" and (if it even needs to be said) the stumble that "I Was Looking At The Ceiling..." turned out to be. Nothing tops "Nixon", of course, but that opera is stylistically somewhat different from Adam's current style. I have yet to hear "Doctor Atomic" so I can't compare it.

The performance is excellent as well. The singers are well matched to the material and the playing is phenomenal, as is the mix and master of the CD itself.

I have to confirm the booklet issue, but I have to say it doesn't really bother me. I'm not really a follow-the-libretto kind of opera listener. It's in English, anyhow. From a consumer perspective I would hope they would have some sort of mail-in exchange option, though, once they get it sorted out.

If you're a John Adams fan, this is a must-have, in my opinion.

I went to the Nonesuch website, contacted them as indicated on the site, explained the problem, and within a few days received a courteous e-mail apologizing for the misprinted booklet and explaining that they were reprinting the booklet correctly. A few weeks later I reveived the reprinted booklet, free of errors and free of charge. I hope that those who downgraded this release will go to the [...] website and write a courteous request for the reprinted booklet. As for why others got no reply to their complaints, all I can assume is that they did not go directly to the source on the Nonesuch site.

By the way, I think this opera is yet another masterpiece from one of American's finest living composers. Adams is perhaps our finest composer overall, given the variety and depth (both intellectual and emotional) of his works as well as their appeal to the human ears. Certainly the many performances of his works all over the world suggest that he is. Only in the USA are his compositions relatively rarely performed. Now that the MET has finally, after all these years, recognized him with "Dr. Atomic" and plans a production of "Nixon in China", perhaps we will get to hear and see more of his works in concert halls and opera houses.

I highly recommend his recent autobiography,Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life and the informative The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer. Also well done and greatly to be ejoyed are the DVD studies of his life and music, Hail Bop! A Portrait of John Adams and John Adams - A Portrait and a Concert of American Music. Also available and highly recommended are the DVDs of his earlier operas: The Death of Klinghoffer, in a British film version Adams - Death of Klinghoffer / Randle, Sylvan, Howard, Maltman, Boutros, Melrose, Bickley, LSO and El Nino, which is rather a staged oratorio than an opera as such. We are still waiting for a DVD of "Nixon in China" , his first and most performed opera. It is still available on CD: Nixon in China. When we finally get in on DVD, I bet it will come from the Netherlands, Switzerland, or Great Britain.

John Adams and Steve Reich, along with Christopher Rouse and others, have finally overcome the decades long tyranny of the notion that classical music is to be written by academic composers for a coterie of other academic composers rather than for greater audiences, music determined by chance or mathematics, often elegant on the page, even more often ugly to the ear and anxiety producing to the psyche.

For the record, lest I be mistaken for a musical Philistine into classical music "lite" with easy tunes to hum, I think that the 20th Century's great operas include Berg's "Wozzeck" and "Lulu" and Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron." - along with the operas of Janacek, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Britten. And, yes, let's do some humming: "Porgy and Bess" and "Trouble in Tahiti" and "Candide."

In any case, Nonesuch will gladly send you a new booklet with the complete libretto of "A Flowering Tree." Just go to the label's website and request it.

While I enjoyed this opera tremendously when I saw it in Chicago, and this is a very good recording, the included booklet/libretto is completely messed up. The booklet contains two copies of the libretto of Act I, so you can't follow along with Act II. Nonesuch made a huge mistake in the typesetting and printing. I have contacted them, but they have not responded. It's a shame. This is a wonderful opera, but I wouldn't have purchased the media had I known the booklet was a total mess. I feel a bit cheated.

The shimmering beauty of the music, the magical Tamil tale of transformative love vs. adversity, and the exceptional performances all make John Adams' opera/oratorio "A Flowering Tree" one of his best releases yet.

A flood of antipodal cultural references washes through the music. Adams' minimalist upbringing barely shows. To create some tonal exoticism, most of Act I seems to be in a medieval mixolydian mode (a scale sounding like G to G on the piano's white keys). The melodic lines are more emotive, the orchestration more transparent, the style positivistic in evoking the sound of previous composers.

The opening notes are transporting. Taking Wagner's woodbird music accompaniment from Siegfried and pasting on it a low melody in a peculiar doubling, Adams conjures up the Sibelius of the Sixth Symphony. Later, in highly accented, simply phrased, fortissimo choral passages, the shade of Carl Orff Carmina-izes. During the wedding music, slashing strings typical of the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara are heard. At the beginning of Act II, blatantly Wagnerian horn phrases burst out. Yet all these Western and Nordic references are carefully immersed in genetic Adams: No harm, no postmodern foul.

At times in other works, Adams emotive self is so standoffish you want to shake him. Not so here. Along with "My Father Knew Charles Ives," "Nixon in China," and, yes, "Ceiling ... Sky," this is my favorite Adams so far.

A Flowering Tree isn't John Adams's best opera, but it's certainly better than Dr. Atomic (though the Atomic Symphony is pretty good). It's pleasant and the libretto is less jagged than Atomic's, but not a whole heck of a lot of content like there is in Klinghoffer and especially in Nixon in China.

A couple things really irk me about this opera. Why are the choruses in Spanish? It makes sense in El Nino, where the Spanish is from the original texts, but here's it just pretentious.

And that "monkey chant" chrous in the second half, supposedly one of the highlights of the opera, is absurd. A group of British singers imitating nasal Indonesian monkey chant in Spanish while using the backdrop of an Indian folktale? Is he serious? It's pan-globalism run amok.

Adams's choral works post-El Nino have been a string of disappointments -- really just an exploration of the musical hinterlands and not in a good way. His orchestral works on the other hand, have been getting better and better.

This recording presents the opera in the best light possible, but it still can't save itself from the spiritual self-importance Adams clearly plunks into the work. It's a good occasional listen, but A Flowering Tree is definitely not entering the standard repertoire anytime soon.

John Adams continues to explore innovative musical ideas, tying them to political and philosophical themes, and has become America's favorite contemporary composer. His ability to communicate tremendously powerful responses from his audience with his 'enhanced minimalism' of style ('Nixon in China', 'The Death of Klinghoffer', 'Doctor Atomic' and 'El Nino' operas to works such as 'On the Transmigration of Souls, 'El Dorado', and 'Harmonium') makes him in integral part of our cultural fabric. FLOWERING TREE, beautifully recorded here in its entirety, adds another dimension to Adams' gifts - the translation of an Eastern Indian tale into an 'opera' that successfully recreates a myth while capturing the deep philosophical messages the myth holds as metaphor.

The story is at once simple and complex: suffice it to say that it relates the tale of a young woman reaching puberty who is able to be transformed into a flowering tree, an act that fascinates a Prince who marries the low caste girl for her magic rather than for her person. Giving in to the desire of the Prince the girl advises the people of the court how to recreate the transformation and the Prince and the girl consummate their marriage and discover a profound mutual love. Jealousy within the court leads to the disruption of one of the transformation sequences and the girl is broken while a tree and becomes an armless, legless outcast begging in the streets with her lovely songs. The distraught Prince fades to near nothingness at the loss of his bride, wandering the world for his love until an act brings the two together and the metamorphosis is complete.

The story is told by a narrator (Eric Owen) and the two other singing roles are sung by Jessica Rivera (the tree/girl Kumuhda) and Russell Thomas (the Prince). Each of these gifted singer actors is splendid: the opera is currently being presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with John Adams conducting, assisted by the same three singers on this recording and by the Los Angeles Master Chorale all with the original staging by Peter Sellars and the shadow dancing by three brilliant Indonesian dancers. This work contains some of Adams' most richly colorful orchestration (the music from the large orchestra that paints the transformation of the girl into a tree and that portion that reunites the lovers glows with an erotic and sensuous radiance like no other of Adams' works). The singing is in English but the important choral contributions are sung in Spanish - Adams' confessed second language as a Californian but also a language that for him is more sensual and evocative than English. The combination of these forces is as magic as the tale they describe. John Adams has once again created a vital contemporary work, as rich in beauty of sound as it is in poignantly profound message. It is a little miracle of an opera. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 09

I really, really tried to go into this with an open mind. It seems to have worked, because I adore the music.

I had reservations because I had seen Doctor Atomic in person at the Atlanta Symphony and... needless to say "loathed" wasn't a strong enough adjective for my reaction. I probably would've donated to a fund to send John Adams back to the music academy if I'd been asked.

'A Flowering Tree' however is something different, though. It still has those almost-tuneful melodies and bizarre additions that put me off Doctor Atomic [such as a chorus that sings entirely in Spanish for no obvious reason, since the story is Indian] but this time it's much different. I think it's the libretto, myself. Most of it is in English, and it seems to have a different goal than Doctor Atomic's did.

But that's quite enough about Doctor Atomic.

'A Flowering Tree' may sound incredibly strange at first. It's like plunging into a river and being taken on a tour of a land that looks like nothing you've ever seen before, just as you've never seen a person turn into a Flowering Tree. The harmonies and tonalities are unsettling to someone like myself who prefers Baroque music to pretty much anything, but they are intriguing in an equally strange way.

I highly suggest listening to it at least twice. One the initial shock is over with, you may come to understand it a bit better, and even to adore it [as I have.]

It seems that, as with most contemporary music, Adams is an acquired taste, particularly his more recent stuff. He's like Scriabin in that respect, I think. Once you know where to -find- the beauty, I'm sure you'll appreciate it more and more with time.

It seems like every note and word John Adams writes and speaks is picked up and spread around and endlessly discussed and listened to. Yet I had heard nothing of this beautiful, special work until only very recently. While I am not a fan of the voice of one of the leads, it is an exquisitely beautiful work and shows another side of Mr. Adams' work that shouldn't be ignored.

I saw this in San Francisco and was very impressed with the music, staging, and lighting. The Balinese dancers that shadowed the story as acted and sung by the singers, the use of lighting as Kumudha became a tree--a wonderful work of stagecraft. I waited for this to be put on CD ever since, almost got up the nerve to ask John Adams about it at another concert I attended.

Fortunately the long wait is over and this wonder music is now available for all to listen to. Unfortunately a CD cannot convey the stagecraft of the work, but the magic of the writing does come through. Some of the pieces are deceptively simple but are brilliant in their own way. The piece may not be as heroic or as heart rending as some of Adam's other operas, but in all it is a rewarding and a magical work.

The beautiful, shimmering music is lovely. It reminds me somewhat of Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ... no other living composer approaches Adams for his rich orchestrations, though Graeme Koehne gets better with every piece.

The messed-up libretto is unforgivable ... what moron was overseeing the production? Nonesuch obviously don't wasn't to talk to the customers who paid the considerable outlay for this set ... trying to speak to them or WEA International Ltd about it, is like hunting for the Snark.

Adams and Sellars get A+++ for their work, the record companies get F---.