Spotify Sunday: A tenor’s top ten

I’m a recent and evangelical convert to Spotify, especially since I worked out how to save playlists on my phone so I can keep listening on planes.  It’s probably not how you’re supposed to learn music, but I find it useful to listen to many different versions the operas and concert pieces I have to learn by different orchestras and singers, and pick my favourite bits to steal.

Britten’s Les Illuminations Op.18 – Bostridge / Rattle / Berlin Philharmonic

I went to sing these fantastic songs in Basel last month. I listened to this recording about a hundred times – and heard new things each time.  It’s brilliantly recorded, managing to capture the huge range of colours and nuance that Britten writes without losing any of the excitement and energy of a live performance.
 
16 Pièces – Hocus Pocus

I’ve been a fan of this French hip-hop / jazz/ soul / funk group since my ex-flatmate and opera-singing colleague, Allan Clayton, introduced me to them a few years ago. (In fact, most of the ‘cool’, by which I mean non-classical, music on my Spotify playlists is there because Allan put me on to it.) 

This album came out last year but I’ve only just found it. In the operas I put together with Vignette, we always try to include music that is decidedly not operatic before the show and during the interval. The last show we staged was La Bohème and, while you might not think it would work, ‘Hocus Pocus’ fitted very nicely between the acts in our post-apocalyptic production in Shoreditch’s Village Underground.

Till the World Ends – Britney Spears

That production of La Bohème was largely inspired by the video for this song. We shamelessly copied the aesthetic for the set and costumes, and I even borrowed a few of Britney’s dance moves in the choreography for Act 2. We decided that Britney is a modern day Musetta, and one rehearsal involved watching the video on mute while listening to ‘Quando m’en vo’ in a kind of warped version of ‘one song to the tune of another’.

‘Till the World Ends’ became song became the song of the summer for us on tour and it’s still getting far too many plays on my computer some months later.

The ‘Chirpin’ Crickets – Buddy Holly and Rossini’s La Cenerentola – Rizzi / Royal Opera House

The next show I’m working on directing is Rossini’s Cinderella adaption, La Cenerentola, for Bury Court Opera – and once again we’re going off-piste with the design concept. Imagine something in between Happy Days and Goodfellas and you’ll be on the right track. Our designer, Will Reynolds, and I have been meeting in 1950s-style diners around London and listening to lots of Buddy Holly to get inspired – or at least that’s our excuse. There’s nothing like a tax-deductible cheeseburger.

We feel that there is something in the songs of the 1950s that shares ground with bel canto opera. Maybe it has something to do with their structure and the way they were performed, combined with major-key optimism and confidently romantic lyrics. 

Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – Berlin Philharmonic / Karl Böhm
 
My friend, Louis Watt, and I are starting to put together an opera project that is planned to take place in South Eastern Africa in late 2013, and will involve taking a version of the Magic Flute on an articulated lorry from Nairobi to Cape Town. Despite the incredible amount that needs to be done to make ‘Opera for Change’ happen, Louis and I are already rather too excited about the playlist we’re going to make for the journey. This will definitely be on it. 

Tamino was one of the first roles I sang after leaving college and this recording, with Fritz Wunderlich singing the Prince, has long been an inspiration. The version that we take to Africa will differ slightly from this recording, as we’re planning to translate sections into languages such as Swahili and Xhosa. 
 
Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Louis recommend this new album from American indie / folk band Bon Iver to me a few weeks back and I have been playing it a lot while travelling around.  It’s become very useful for avoiding stress at airports and stations, providing an escape to a calmer place. 

The whole album occupies an enchanting sound-world, with overdrive guitar sounds and lush overlaid harmonies tempered by a honey-glow reverb. There is something sad and cold about it, which resonates with me, as I just spent a week in Stockholm, itself in the midst of a ‘Bon hiver’ or ‘bra vinter’, as they would say in Swedish.

xx – xx

Rarely a day goes by that I don’t listen to ‘Crystalised’ from this album; I like the sparse texture, the exhausted-sounding duetting and the way the track slows down and dies at the end. 

I also like how one of the verses has the male and female voices in octaves in unison but singing different words that you can nevertheless understand. It reminds me of those ensembles from Mozart, such as the Act 2 finale of Figaro, when there are up to six people singing different things all at once but you can still understand everything that is happening. 
 
Schumann Lieder – Christian Gerhaher

This guy is a genius. If you need any other reason to listen to this album, then just take a look at the cover shot: great Lieder-hair.

Dudley Moore songs from The Complete Beyond the Fringe and ‘Musical Genius and Sex Symbol’ – Earl Okin

For me, these songs with Dudley Moore singing and playing go beyond being the best that musical comedy can offer and become works of extraordinary art. I recommend specifically ‘Two English Songs’, ‘Deutscher Chansons’ and ‘The Weill Song’.

Only Earl Okin comes close to equalling them, on his album Musical Genius and Sex Symbol.  Listen out for bossa nova version of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ and Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’, as well as the world’s greatest trumpet impression in ‘Bessie, Bessie, Bessie’.

You can listen to the playlist on Spotify here.

Tenor Andrew Staples has sung with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestr, and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and founded the innovative opera production company Vignette Productions. You can follow him on Twitter @ajrstaples .

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