To say that Simon Keenlyside is a thinking man's baritone might lead people to believe that he's cerebral at the expense of feelings; nothing could be further from the truth. It also should be noted that his voice is beautiful and his technique spotless--he's as comfortable with the low, dark tones of Renato in "Eri tu" as he is with the high, soft singing in the middle of the Pagliacci prologue and the aria's penultimate high A-flat and the high G that follows it. The voice itself is not large, but it does precisely what it has to to bring these scenes to life.
This CD is titled "Tales of Opera" (rather than the usual "Great Baritone Arias" or the latest "Songs of Lust and Passion", the former generic and the latter designed to sell the album as something "hot"), and there's a reason for it. Baritones who get inside their roles and make us care and wonder about their characters are not as rare as tenors with the same characteristics, but Keenlyside almost never goes for the obvious. Opening a recital CD with "Largo al factotum" is both safe and daring, but Keenlyside does it and makes us hear it clearly: he's witty but he doesn't mug, and his showing-off is in step with the character's virility and not his own.
In the following "Sois immobile" from William Tell Keenlyside sounds as if he's a different singer. All swagger is gone and he sings intimately and with a type of focus utterly right for this terrifying father/son moment. His reading of Herod's "Vision fugitive" is oozing with desire; his "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen" does not give us a silly bird-man--it gives us someone searching for love. Similarly, "Eri tu" is the tragic exposing of a soul. Perhaps because Keenlyside's voice is not huge he opts for another way to sing the aria, but I suspect that he thought it through before realizing what might be called a limitation, i.e., the inability to boom like a Milnes or Warren.
In aria after aria we get caught up in character; the glorious singing is taken for granted. In what Sony refers to in the booklet as "Dah (sic) vieni alla finestra", Keenlyside is serenading and seducing for real, as the Don should be; and Wolfram's Song to the Evening Star, so difficult to "sell" outside of the opera, here is a gentle, evocative, frozen moment in time. A rarity from L'Arlesiana and a rousing version of Hamlet's Drinking Song are other interesting stops along the way, and Keenlyside's musical, sensitive way with "Di Provenza il mar" makes it seem truly fresh as well.
Ulf Schirmer is the responsive conductor and the Munich Radio Orchestra plays with warmth and professionalism. The sound is excellent. The accompanying booklet has intelligent notes by Keenlyside himself, but no texts or translations, which probably is a money-saving move. At any rate, it's nice to have Sony releasing classical material that isn't Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, or a re-tread, and with Keenlyside they've got a real winner. --Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com
In the following "Sois immobile" from William Tell Keenlyside sounds as if he's a different singer. All swagger is gone and he sings intimately and with a type of focus utterly right for this terrifying father/son moment. His reading of Herod's "Vision fugitive" is oozing with desire; his "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen" does not give us a silly bird-man--it gives us someone searching for love. Similarly, "Eri tu" is the tragic exposing of a soul. Perhaps because Keenlyside's voice is not huge he opts for another way to sing the aria, but I suspect that he thought it through before realizing what might be called a limitation, i.e., the inability to boom like a Milnes or Warren.
In aria after aria we get caught up in character; the glorious singing is taken for granted. In what Sony refers to in the booklet as "Dah (sic) vieni alla finestra", Keenlyside is serenading and seducing for real, as the Don should be; and Wolfram's Song to the Evening Star, so difficult to "sell" outside of the opera, here is a gentle, evocative, frozen moment in time. A rarity from L'Arlesiana and a rousing version of Hamlet's Drinking Song are other interesting stops along the way, and Keenlyside's musical, sensitive way with "Di Provenza il mar" makes it seem truly fresh as well.
Ulf Schirmer is the responsive conductor and the Munich Radio Orchestra plays with warmth and professionalism. The sound is excellent. The accompanying booklet has intelligent notes by Keenlyside himself, but no texts or translations, which probably is a money-saving move. At any rate, it's nice to have Sony releasing classical material that isn't Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, or a re-tread, and with Keenlyside they've got a real winner. --Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com
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