Customer Reviews

Lee Hoiby: The Tempest

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

 

 

This lovely opera is neo-romantic, modern, and 17th century baroque all at once. Hoiby has his own musical voice. And speaking of voices, the singers are not only beautiful to the ear they are also understandable. It's more than a matter of their fine enunciation. Hoiby's writing for the voice in the English language is reminiscent of Purcell and Britten - all is so natural and so clear. The language is faithful to Shakespeare's play, unlike that of Thomas Ades's "Tempest" (which is a totally different matter musically and in staging yet excellent in itself). The orchestration is rich and varied and always supports the vocal line. Hoiby does resort to some musical cliches, but mostly in the comic scenes and always to good effect. I'm downsizing my large collection of CDs because we are about to retire, but this is one album I will keep. I wish they had made a DVD of one of the performances - the photos of the good looking singers in cleverly crafted costumes at play in fantastical settings are absolutely tantalizing.

I first heard Lee Hoiby's opera of The Tempest about ten years ago when Dallas broadcast their production of it over NPR. I was enchanted with it and naively assumed it would be recorded and released by somebody with a great cast by some enterprising recording company. I was so naive...
Now Albany has produced a lovely recording of the revised version (also heard in Dallas in 1996), but with a cast largely made up of students. Fortunately they are all good. There are no vocal disasters. Quite the opposite: there are some fine voices here. All sound very appropriate for their roles. The complete text is included and the sound is generally first-rate, warm and atmospheric. The slight qualifier there is that on CD 2, track 3 of my copy the sound suddenly goes from beautiful stereo into mono and then magically goes back to stereo at track 4, fortunately staying that way for the rest of the disc. It is irritating although not a disaster. I wonder if this only afflicts certain copies or if it's something that can be fixed in a later pressing.
At any rate, treat yourself to this shimmering, humane, melodic score. Hoiby is very underrated and richly deserves to be better known!

This is a fabulous recording by one of America's finest vocal composers.
SUNY Purchase Opera is a revelation---real operatic voices and a full-fledged symphony to support them. More power to Jacques Trussel (director and former star tenor) and the very gifted conductor Hugh Murphy who leads this lovely product. Kudos to all