Description
Partly due to Wagner’s megalomaniacal ways, the program here is one that nobody has put together before. The Romantic idea of the solitary genius was nowhere more applicable than Wagner, who rarely acknowledged being influenced by anybody and certainly wouldn’t have welcomed comparisons to Italian composers. Yet this survey by tenor Michael Spyres of the “shadows” out of which Wagner emerged makes all kinds of sense. Spyres’ program is chronological, and it begins with music from Étienne Nicolas Méhul’s Joseph (1807), a work that attained a good deal of popularity in Germany, although it is hardly known today. Spyres proceeds forward in time, alternating well-known works (Beethoven’s Fidelio, Op. 72, Bellini’s Norma) with those less so (an early Italian-language Meyerbeer, Il crociato in Egitto, Heinrich Marschner’s Hans Heiling, Op. 80). By the time he gets to the 20-year-old Wagner’s Die Feen and then Rienzi, the results seem almost predetermined. Weber, often considered Wagner’s direct ancestor, is here, but he was not the full story, and the real Wagnerian breakthrough, represented by “Mein lieber Schwan” from Lohengrin, somehow seems richer than usual. It is, partly, that Spyres, billed here as a baritenor, is clearly emerging as a major star. He has developed an instantly recognizable style, with a clipped vibrato that can expand expressively, as needed, and it meshes well with the work of conductor Christophe Rousset and his historical instrument ensemble Les Talens Lyriques. As much as any other recording, this one puts the listener in the place of an early-to-mid-19th century opera fan. ~ James Manheim
