Ever since Brigitte Fassbaender and Christa Ludwig demonstrated what a woman’s voice and passion could bring to Schubert’s wintry journey, the menfolk have thrown wide the doors of this greatest of song cycles to the opposite sex. Written in the first person and ostensibly masculine, Winterreise presents a choice and a challenge for a woman. Are you the Lieder equivalent of an operatic trouser role? Are you somehow outside of the action? Or are you, more interestingly, a woman? In our more genderfluid times, the field seems more open than ever, but for their Carnegie Hall recital, Joyce DiDonato and Yannick Nézet-Séguin adopted an original and intriguing approach.
Joyce DiDonato and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo © Chris Lee
Who is the lady referred to in Wilhelm Müller’s poems? She spoke of love, we are told, and she’s likely of the respectable middle class. Ultimately, though, we learn little about the woman who precipitated our protagonist’s departure from a town that was hers, not his, and launched him on this trek through this bleakest of winter landscapes. But what if, as DiDonato predicates, “he sent me...
Continue reading
Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month
Already a subscriber?
Log in
Comments
Log in to join the conversation.