The Wigmore Hall recording of a recital by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson of Brahms and Schumann songs has been named one of the ten best classical-music recordings of 2008 by Alex Ross of the New Yorker.
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
The recording Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs was released in the United States on December 19, 2006, at amazon.com and other retailers.
Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs / Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, arkivmusic.com
Boston
Symphony Orchestra, James Levine & Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - Lieberson: Neruda
Songs (USA)
A DVD of Handel's Giulio Cesare with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in the role of Sesto was released for the United States on November 14, 2006. CAST: JEFFREY GALL Giulio Cesare, SUSAN LARSON Cleopatra, MARY WESTBROOK-GEHA Cornelia, LORRAINE HUNT Sesto, JAMES MADDALENA Achilla, DREW MINTER Tolomeo, CHERYL COBB Nirena, and HERMAN HILDEBRAND Curio. Saechsische Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Craig Smith. Directed by Peter Sellars.
A
recording of Peter Lieberson's Rilke Songs sung by Lorraine Hunt
Lieberson was released on May 30, 2006, at
amazon.com and
amazon.co.uk.
Lorraine Hunt
Lieberson & Peter Serkin - Music of Peter Lieberson (USA)
LORRAINE HUNT LIEBERSON was born in San Francisco, California, on March
1, 1954.
"That she began her professional life as a freelance violist and did not focus fully on singing until she was 26 may account for the musical depth and intelligence of her vocal artistry," wrote Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times.
"She studied singing at the Boston Conservatory and began to sing professionally [in Boston] in 1984," says Richard Dyer in the Boston Globe.
She made her Met debut during the 1999-2000 season in the role of Myrtle Wilson in the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby. Her voice carried well in that house, and I thought that it was a great thrill to hear her. I thought that she was the best singer in the production. Reviews of her performance were quite favorable.
Reviewing the Met's Great Gatsby in the February 2000 issue of Opera, Martin Bernheimer wrote: "Making her belated Met debut, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (the last name is a recent marital appendage) brought extraordinary conviction and pathos to the plaints of Myrtle Wilson."
Reviewing The Great Gatsby in March 2000 Opera News, John W. Freeman wrote: "By far the strongest characterization goes to Myrtle Wilson, the floozy with whom Tom is having an affair. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, in an auspicious Met debut, made the most of this, adapting the intensity and charisma that have made her the darling of Baroque-opera enthusiasts."
During the 1999-2000 season, she was also heard as Le Perelin in the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho's Clemence at the Salzburg Festival. In that same season, she is singing Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito at the New York City Opera, Ottavia in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea in Vienna, and the role of the child in a concert performance of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sotil�ges with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Reviewing the New York City Opera's La Clemenza di Tito in the New York Times of March 28, 2000, Paul Griffiths wrote:
Ms. Hunt has also sung with the Paris Opera, and at Santa Fe, Glyndebourne, and Tanglewood.
Ms. Hunt's performances with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants in baroque operas, including appearances in the role of Ph�dre in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, have been especially noteworthy.
Ms. Hunt was married to the composer Peter Lieberson, and the couple lived in New Mexico.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died on July 3, 2006, at her home in Santa Fe. "An executive at IMG Artists, speaking on behalf of her husband, composer
Peter Lieberson, told The New York Times only that she died 'after a long
illness.' Bloomberg.com reported the cause of death as cancer; members of the
popular online bulletin board Opera-L reported the cause of death as, variously,
metastatic liver cancer and a recurrence of the breast cancer with which she was
diagnosed in 2000," wrote Matthew Westphal at
playbillarts.com
on July 5, 2006.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's recording of Handel's La Lucrezia and of arias from Serse and Theodora has been released on the Avie label and can be ordered from amazon.co.uk.
Georg Friedrich Haendel, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson
For an article in Opera News of August 2007, Louise T. Guinther
asked experts in the field for their personal choices for the top-five baroque
vocal recordings. Beth Clayton, mezzo-soprano, said: "Lorraine
Hunt Lieberson tops my list--Handel Arias (Avie) and Bach Cantatas
(Nonesuch). Both recordings epitomize why I adored Lorraine--visceral
singing that doesn't adhere to any preconceived restraints sometimes associated
with Baroque style. She simply--or very complexly, with her multi-layered
interpretations--puts it out there with raw emotion and almost tangible yet
simultaneous fragility and strength." As quoted in Gramophone of September 2002, countertenor David Daniels said:
"What is perhaps most unusual about Hunt Lieberson, though, is that while she embodies the versatility and vivid theatricality of the ideal modern singer, she also maintains the traditional virtues of singers of bygone eras. Who else today throws herself into every utterance with such abandon?," wrote Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times in a recital review dated October 11, 2002.
According to the New York Times of June 16, 2006, "The mezzo-soprano
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, is canceling all performances
for the rest of the year for 'personal reasons,' starting with an appearance at
Tanglewood on Aug. 11, the
Boston Symphony Orchestra said. She was to have sung Handel arias with the
orchestra under Harry Bicket. Ms. Lieberson's
engagements this year only amounted to a handful, said Bill Palant, her
representative at IMG Artists. Ms. Lieberson has canceled a number of
performances in the past two seasons for health reasons. Mr. Palant said he was
not authorized by the singer to elaborate on the recent round of cancellations.
'I don't want any inferences or implications to be made by anyone,' he said.
DANIEL J. WAKIN" Article at
Playbill Arts
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, in the central role of Sesto, asked for the audience's understanding because of a viral infection, but it is impossible to imagine how she could have sung better. In "Parto, parto," the aria in which Sesto agrees to execute a palace revolution on behalf of his beloved Vitellia, Ms. Hunt Lieberson's vocal presence and coloring conveyed all the character's determination and deep underlying regret. Her impressive performance here gave her confidence and propelled her into powerfuly expressive singing in the accompanied recitative before the first-act finale. In the second act, her big aria was again a masterpiece of phrasing and feeling, the two working together with the help of rich color, perfectly molded sound and a wide dynamic range.
Airs sacr�s et profanes - Sacd hybride, fnac.com
And to be perfectly honest, I learned so much through working so extensively as I did with Lorraine Hunt. Here's a person whose whole body is involved in the singing, the acting, the character and the emotion and she gives the most natural, honest performances you'll ever see. And to sit in rehearsals and watch her in the three or four productions I did with her was to learn so much. There's more emotion there than you'd encounter in a Verdi opera because in Handel's operas there's a power of emotion that can be put into the context of right now and she does just that. It's incredible.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson items at amazon.com
Article in The Guardian by Charlotte Higgins, July 16, 2004
Article in The Guardian by Charlotte Higgins, August 8, 2003
Article in the New Yorker by Charles Michener, January 5, 2004
Selected Recordings
El Ni�o by John Adams
News and reviews, in blog format
Gerald Waldman's message at opera-l about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on her birthday March 1, 2003
Lorraine
Hunt Lieberson - Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - Bach: Cantatas, BWV 82 & 199 (USA)
Lorraine
Hunt Lieberson, Nicholas McGegan & Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra - Handel:
Arias for Durastanti (USA)
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson at Napster.com
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Rhapsody Artists
This is a fan page, not affiliated in any way with the singer.
Reviews of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in Idomeneo, Edinburgh, August 2001
In the Guardian, Tim Ashley wrote: "The only performance that gets to the essence of the character is Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's Idamante. She is an astonishing singer, and the emotions are at once vivid, lacerating and convincing."A review in The Scotsman said that "the enormously powerful and resonant Lorraine Hunt Lieberson lent a sublime and emotive presence to the part of Idamante, as richly textured as Barbara Frittoli's gentle and loveable Elettra."
Rodney Milnes in The Times wrote that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson "always gives 120 per cent in performance (words, alas, are not central to her singing, but feeling is)[.]"
But, strangely enough, Raymond Monelle in the Independent wrote: "the Idamante, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, gave no pleasure at all. At her best, she can be searingly expressive but on this occasion, she was noisy and coarse, her acidulous sound souring the texture of the Act 2 trio."
Rupert Christiansen in the Telegraph thought that she was miscast as Idamante. "Non ho colpa, which lay much too high for her, came close to disaster. There were points at which she looked so tense and miserable that I thought she was about to vomit." But for him the clouds lifted in Act Three. "Hunt Lieberson and [Lisa] Milne broke all hearts in their duet . . ."
CD
Lorraine at Emmanuel, amazon.co.uk
Mahler: Symphony no. 2, San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, amazon.co.uk
Handel: Arias / Lorraine Hunt, Nicholas Mcgegan
arkivmusic.com
Idomeneo
amazon.co.uk
Bach Cantatas nos. 82 & 199, amazon.co.uk
amazon.fr
Bach: Cantatas Bwv 82 and 199 / Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
arkivmusic.com
Purcell: The Fairy Queen, amazon.com
