Houston Grand Opera, Jake Heggie - Three Decembers
List Price:
Our Price: $7.12
You Save: $28.86 (80%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Artist: Houston Grand Opera, Jake HeggieComposer: Jake Heggie
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Orchestra: Ensemble from the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra
Performer: Frederica von Stade
Performer: soprano
Performer: Keith Phares
Performer: Kristin Clayton
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-12-01
Music Label: Albany Records
Soundtracks:
- Three Decembers
Music reviews of Three Decembers
Music Review: A New Resonance to the Term Soap Opera
Rating: 3 Stars
Complaining about sentimentality in an opera may not prove convincing, given how gloriously sentimental most of the standard 19th C repertory is. La Boheme? Tosca? Madame Butterfly? Nonetheless, Jake Heggie's chamber opera Three Decembers exceeds my personal sentimentality quota, both in its libretto and its music. The drama involves the miscommunications and lies between a narcissistic actress mother and her two grown children. The father died when the children were small, and the secret of his suicide is at the core of the drama. The son is gay and the mother is unaccepting. The daughter has an unfaithful hubby and takes to drink. Eventually the mother dies, her ghost joins the two siblings on stage to sing a paean to life, and it seems that the trio is finally reconciled in a shower of spiritual confetti.
Perhaps I just can't envision our mass-media lives as operatic material. I can't hear transcendence sung in off-the-rack miracle-fabric costumes, I can't help seeing this libretto as a paint-by-the-numbers interchangeable-tragedies soap opera. It's probably my shortcoming, but I'm being honest. So much is so pat and pertinent to our mass transit to mortality. Besides, I think I'm supposed to be titillated by hearing opera singers sing the forbidden four-letter words, as in a David Mamet drama, and I'm not.
Frankly, except that the music is a little too abstract, Three Decembers would play better as a Broadway Show than as an opera. That's not inherently a flaw, of course; it's my attempt at a realistic assessment of the treatment. There are scenes -- the best scenes, in fact, like the playful duet the sibs sing about the salvation to be had from buying new shoes -- that could succeed instantly on Broadway. The sounds coming from the small on-stage chamber orchestra would satisfy a Broadway crowd. The larger part of the vocal score, however, would need work. It's oddly unmelodic "Spreckstimme" stuff, so errant in tonality that all three singers lost the key at least once. I have to wonder: in a work so close to its 'pop' culture influences, why couldn't composer Heggie have offered us the tantalizing pleasure of more melodic vocal lines? As it stands, the work is in a kind of compositional limbo, between contemporary operetta and truly bold modernism.
I have to mention that, for the paying audience at Cal Performances, the whole point of Three Decembers was as a vehicle for the musical farewell of Frederica von Stade, one of the greatest and most beloved singers of her era. She brought full measure of pizazz to the role of the Tony-winning mother; the plaudits were room-shaking. She sings the part on this CD also, but without her physical presence the magic isn't obvious.
Was there anything excellent about Three Decembers? If so, I missed it, but my wife liked it much better than I did. She's a psychologist. She thought the drama was "real." I'm a musician. I thought the music was dull.
More Three Decembers free music reviews:
1
1
Description of Three Decembers
Jake Heggie composed this musical play in three acts for Frederica von Stade, who has had a large influence on his composing career. Heggie was working in the press office of the San Francisco Opera when he first met von Stade. She listened to some of his songs and became so enthused that Heggie received a commission for his first opera. Three Decembers is taken from a play titled Some Christmas Letters and tells the story of the emotional lives of three people: mother, adult daughter and son through letters and phone calls during three Decembers in three different decades of their lives.Classical CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in Classical CDs
Winterscapesby London Philharmonic
Prophetic Voice; Published: 2000-07; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
The Queen, the Bear, & the Bumblebeeby Dini Petty
Children's Group; Published: 2001-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.38
Price in other shops:
Classical Kids - Beethoven Lives Upstairs CdrRelease date: 2000-04-05; Music CD
Best price: $24.98
Tchaikovsky (Life and Works (Naxos))by Malcolm Sinclair, Jeremy Siepmann
Naxos; Published: 2003-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $35.99
![Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS] Image](/images/Jose-Carreras-Jubileum-Concert-VHS-1584481471-X.jpg){kind=small}
Jose Carreras - Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS]Sling Shot; Release date: 2000-04-18; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops:
![Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS] Image](/images/Tchaikovsky-The-Nutcracker-Nureyev-Park-Royal-Ballet-VHS-156127092X-X.jpg){kind=small}
Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-09-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.89
Price in other shops:
![Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS] Image](/images/Lonely-Town-Lonley-Street-Sergeant-Early-Dream-VHS-1561270857-X.jpg){kind=small}
Rambert Dance Company - Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-10-28; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
Winter Music: Composing the Northby John Luther Adams
Wesleyan; Published: 2004-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.91
Price in other shops:
![Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Puccini-La-Fanciulla-del-West-Santi-Domingo-Neblett-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720382-X.jpg){kind=small}
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops:
![Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Verdi-Falstaff-Giulini-Bruson-Ricciarelli-Nucci-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720358-X.jpg){kind=small}
Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops:
Similar CDs
Therese Raquin: Opera in 2 Acts (World Premiere Performance)Release date: 2002-06-25; Music CD
Best price: $19.75
Price in other shops:
Rachmaninov: Complete Operas (Aleko, The Miserly Knight, Francesca di Rimini)Release date: 2004-06-15; Music CD
Best price: $13.82
Price in other shops:
The Deepest DesireRelease date: 2006-01-10; Music CD
Best price: $25.02
Aldridge: Elmer GantryRelease date: 2011-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $11.49
Price in other shops:
Previn - A Streetcar Named Desire / Fleming, Futral, Gilfry, Griffey, SF Opera, PrevinRelease date: 1998-12-22; Music CD
Best price: $18.99
Price in other shops:
The Grapes of WrathRelease date: 2008-08-26; Music CD
Best price: $29.81
Price in other shops:
Dwayne Croft, Jerry Hadley - The Great Gatsby - Metropolitan Opera Exclusive CDPublished: 2000; Music CD
Best price: $21.00
Heggie: For a Look or a TouchRelease date: 2008-04-29; Music CD
Best price: $4.83
Price in other shops:
Heggie: Dead Man Walking (Live recording of 2000 world premiere production)Release date: 2002-01-08; Music CD
Best price: $30.00
Price in other shops:
Passing ByRelease date: 2010-09-14; Music CD
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops: