Jon Vickers R.I.P.

[stenka razin]

One of the greatest singers of the 20th century has passed. Tribute below. Sadness in my heart.........

Regards,
Mel


http://www.roh.org.uk/news/canadian-bor ... ckers-dies

[lennygoran]

Mel we`re sad too. Len

[josé echenique]

A truly glorious singer: individual, powerful, electric and yet very musical. We won´t see the likes of him again.

[piston]

From a small prairie town of 35,000. What an incredible life of artistic achievements!

[piston]

What C. Davis and Jon Vickers did with Peter Grimes, one of Vickers' preferred roles, is to portray the leading character the way he was originally depicted in George Crabbe's poem "Peter Grimes," as a genuine murderer, an indefensible brute. According to Alex Ross, Britten's first drafts of the opera leave no doubt that he originally intended to be more or less faithful to that 18th-century story but he later made the character into a less dramatic villain, even into a persecuted individual (an allegory for the persecution of homosexuals), a role more fitting to the lyrical Peter Pears. Hence the source of mutual bad feelings between Britten and Vickers:

There are essentially two schools of thought on “Grimes.” One is the outcast-persecuted-by-society, or Popular Front, reading, to which the composer and the librettist both subscribed. According to this view, Grimes is a difficult, unlikable man—a rageaholic, let’s say—but he is not to blame for the deaths of his two apprentices, the first of whom drowns before the opera begins and the second of whom falls off a cliff in Act II. The fisherman is the victim of a lynch mob; the villagers expiate their own sins by making him their scapegoat. Mrs. Sedley, the opium-addicted busybody who accuses Grimes of murder, is a diseased Miss Marple who has been searching all her life for a crime equal to her hallucinations. The attack on Grimes can be seen as an allegory of the persecution of homosexuals and pacifists (Britten was both) or of Communists (Montagu Slater, the librettist, was one). Indeed, the villagers often chatter viciously among themselves like an Un-Anglian Activities Committee: “Him who despises us / we’ll destroy!”

Then, there is George Crabbe’s poem “Peter Grimes,” which inspired the opera. Crabbe was born in 1754 in the fishing village of Aldeburgh, where the story is set and where Britten wrote most of the score. The poet heard tell of a cruel fisherman who was thought to have caused the deaths of several boys, and from that rumor he wove the character of Grimes. He created a horrible but compelling brute whose soliloquies sometimes rise to Shakespearean grandeur. The abuse of the boys is not only physical but possibly also sexual: “Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long / The grossest insult and the foulest wrong.” The villagers’ only crime is that they fail to notice what is going on. Britten had originally intended to make a faithful adaptation of this ghastly material; his early sketches, which can be seen in the Britten archive in Aldeburgh, repeatedly refer to the deaths of the boys as “murders.” It was Slater who pulled the opera in the direction of social allegory. Britten himself softened the character at the last minute, perhaps fearing a scandal.

Enter Colin Davis. In the sixties and seventies, at the Met and at Covent Garden, he conducted sensational performances of “Grimes” in which all the violence of Crabbe rose to the surface. His ally was the tenor Jon Vickers, who sang the title role with an emotional nakedness that trained singers seldom achieve onstage. On the classic recording that Davis and Vickers made, you can hear Grimes’s universal anger in the first minute of the inquest scene that begins the opera, just in the way he sings “I swear by Almighty God.” Vickers also made Grimes a high-dramatic role rather than the lyric creation of Peter Pears, who first played the part. Britten disliked Vickers’s interpretation, but the intentional fallacy applies as much to music as to literature: the composer had no right to censor rival readings of his own work, nor did he try.

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/04/peter_grimes.html

Some great fans of the Britten/Pears "true" version have gone so far as to view Vickers as a "fundie" Christian homophobe for his anti-social allegory interpretation. But as Ross points out, that interpretation was not only faithful to the original story but probably closer to Britten's own early conception of the character.

[John F]

The last paragraph strikes me as profoundly true, if not of all art then of art that really matters:

"Art is a wrestling with the meaning of life," Vickers once said. Since society no longer resists "the pull of success," it can no longer "define or draw a line between what's art and what's entertainment.''

[lennygoran]

I have a laser disc of vickers as grimes-just superb!!! Vickers just blows you away!!! Len

[Allen]

I also have his CD recording of "Peter Grimes". He's unforgettable!

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33497596

[piston]

Vickers was a very private individual who generally declined to be interviewed (including by Lebrecht, on several occasions). But some bits and pieces of his way of thinking about art can be found, such as his special bond with Karajan, his admiration for Callas, his post-retirement work on the melodrama Enoch Arden, with pianist Marc-André Hamelin.

About Peter Grimes, he viewed "Ben and Peter" as holding this drama, with its abundant existential lessons, "too close to their eyes," at 3:00. This comment is followed with how he came to work with Hamelin on the Tennyson poem:

[piston]

Since people here seem to agree that they don't make them like him anymore, what about some reflections on his very unusual background and truly tenuous connection with the establishment until he virtually erupted onto the scene with his unique personality and perceptions?
--a farm worker on his father's best friend's farm for some eleven years;
--a retail store employee at the old Canadian Woolworth chain store;
--first really taught how to sing so as not to damage his voice by a local organist;
--capable of moving to Toronto on a tiny grant, to formally study opera singing.

Vickers, always opposed to the negative artistic effects of performers too focused on their sole vocal attributes and self-interested career development, believed that he would never have become the artist he was without those summer months of farm work because his personality, his "whole philosophy of life was formed in those years":

In this rural setting I came to the conclusion the only meaningful thing in this life is contact with other human beings. It was there too that deep and profound Christian convictions settled in me which have been an influence all of my life. The understanding, which surely and slowly developed in me, of the necessity of human contact and of an understanding of the need of others and of their problems has probably, more than anything else, given me the ability to analyze my roles, to come to grips with a score, to study a drama, to project my feelings into the life of someone I've never met except on a piece of paper. It enabled me to put myself into that person's life and their feelings to the point that I can put the person on and wear him for a stage life.

From Jeannie Williams, Jon Vickers: A Hero's Life, University Press of New England, 1999, page 15.

This testimony suggests to me that a clinically-trained opera singer with little life experience and not much interest in human interaction beyond his/her immediate artistic circle cannot possibly develop into a performing artist in the same class of Jon Vickers.

[barney]

In 1981, on my opera pilgrimage to Europe, I heard Vickers sing Grimes at the Paris Opera. I had a restricted viewing seat, but by holding a column and leaning into the void from the gods I could see it all. Young and fit, this was no problem. And what an astonishing event, one of the highlights of my musical life.

Very interesting discussion above. I wasn't aware that Vickers and Britten fell out over his interpretation. The Britten/Pears is the only Grimes recording I have; I will have to fix that.

[Lance]

Such a very great artist and I am sorry he has left us. I cherish the many recordings I have with Vickers. It may interesting to learn that two of his discs feature former conductor of the Met, Richard Woitach, a native of Endicott, New York (a few miles from Binghamton and a part of the Triple Cities where I lived for 26 years), was his piano collaborator on at least two of his recordings:

a] CBC 2024 (Canada), a live recital, Edmonton, Alberta, 1974
b] CMC-Centredisc (Canada), Canadian Art Songs
c] VAI 1032, In concert, live 1967, of Handel, Scarlatti, Handel, and Schumann's Dichterliebe

[slofstra]

From a small prairie town of 35,000. What an incredible life of artistic achievements!

Strictly speaking, not prairie but boreal forest in northern Saskatchewan. Grey Owl country.

[slofstra]

His bio in the Canadian Encyclopedia mentions his performances with our local symphony.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/e ... ckers-emc/

"In 1985 and in 1988 he made concert appearances with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra including entire acts from Die Walküre and Parsifal."

The 1985 performance or perhaps another one even earlier signalled one of my first encounters with live classical music performance, and literally sent chills down my spine as Vickers sang excerpts from Wagner's 'Die Walkure' in powerful and rivetting fashion. This was the most significant concert experience of that year, and kept me coming back for more. While I had sporadically attended KWS concerts since around 1980, I'd have to say that it was the Vickers concert that gave me the bug, and I've been a season subscriber ever since.

[piston]

From a small prairie town of 35,000. What an incredible life of artistic achievements!

Strictly speaking, not prairie but boreal forest in northern Saskatchewan. Grey Owl country.

Ok, but you're not entirely accurate either. The city is in the transitional zone between aspen parkland and boreal forest biomes. The term aspen parkland itself refers to "a very large area of transitional biome between prairie and boreal forest..." So, it's really a gateway to the northern boreal forest located at the northern edge of the transitional aspen parkland biome.

[lennygoran]

Tribute below.

On the tribute just one question--I see this:

"Holding strong convictions, Vickers wrestled with portraying certain characters - notably Parsifal – and actually refused to perform some roles on moral grounds – specifically, Tannhauser. Other roles included, Nerone (L'incoronzione di Poppea), Hermann (The Queen of Spades), Vasek (The Bartered Bride), Pollione (Norma), Erik (Der fliegende Holländer), Don Alvaro (La forza del destino), Herod (Salome) and the title roles of Andrea Chenier, Samson (both Saint Saëns and Handel)."

Am I understanding this-he wrestled with all the roles listed above or just Parsifal-if he wrestled with the other roles could someone explain why? Regards, Len

[slofstra]

From a small prairie town of 35,000. What an incredible life of artistic achievements!

Strictly speaking, not prairie but boreal forest in northern Saskatchewan. Grey Owl country.

Ok, but you're not entirely accurate either. The city is in the transitional zone between aspen parkland and boreal forest biomes. The term aspen parkland itself refers to "a very large area of transitional biome between prairie and boreal forest..." So, it's really a gateway to the northern boreal forest located at the northern edge of the transitional aspen parkland biome.

It's beautiful farmland country dotted with patches of trees on the southern edge of the boreal forest. A large national park lies just to the north. I believe it was also John G. Diefenbaker's riding, and I wonder if they knew each other.

Aside from that I quite enjoyed your insight above.

[slofstra]

A little Googling, and what do you know?

http://library.usask.ca/sni/stories/art11.html

Clearly Vickers was a man who watered his roots.

[piston]

Tribute below.

On the tribute just one question--I see this:

"Holding strong convictions, Vickers wrestled with portraying certain characters - notably Parsifal – and actually refused to perform some roles on moral grounds – specifically, Tannhauser. Other roles included, Nerone (L'incoronzione di Poppea), Hermann (The Queen of Spades), Vasek (The Bartered Bride), Pollione (Norma), Erik (Der fliegende Holländer), Don Alvaro (La forza del destino), Herod (Salome) and the title roles of Andrea Chenier, Samson (both Saint Saëns and Handel)."

Am I understanding this-he wrestled with all the roles listed above or just Parsifal-if he wrestled with the other roles could someone explain why? Regards, Len

I don't think that "Other roles included" refers to other roles he wrestled with. From the Bruce Duffie interview:

JV: Yes, yes, to see the contrast. I have done Samson by Handel and Saint-Saëns. I've done those two different versions and I wish I could do them in the same season because they're very different.

Vickers simply could not "fake" roles that were completely at odds with his identity and what he believed in. He was not a servant of any composer; rather, both performers and composers were servants of Man, if one recognized "the divinity with the word "Man." To his mind, some composers were geniuses but not great artists (Wagner, Stravinsky, etc.) precisely because of how poorly or destructively they had served Man. Some, like Britten, failed to see the "eternal" nature of their subjects because they were too focused on their own issues. Others, like Wagner, were determined to "reveal the destructive force of Christianity, that Christianity itself had done this enormous destructive thing to mankind in that it divided man against himself." Vickers thought that the revolutionary Wagner was "ignorant" in this respect. He further thought that Wagner devoted his enormous genius to that destructive force:

...he devoted this gigantic genius to that destructive force. What did he wrestle with? In all of his operas, he wrestled with the problem of being a bastard; he wrestled with the problem of incest; he wrestled with the problem of adultery and fornication; all of the negative aspects of our society. None of which would disturb me in the least - I think it was right, these things should be brought out into the open and discussed. But to come to the conclusions that he came to is demonic and diabolical.

...I wrestled with Tannhäuser for a long time and finally I said I wouldn't sing it. I couldn't sing it because it denied everything that I believed in and everything on which I've founded my philosophy of life.

BD: Would you sing Siegfried if the vocal problems were not there?

JV: I don't think Siegfried is anywhere as difficult as Aeneas. But as a character, I don't enjoy him. I find him not delineated in an interesting way as a human being. Götterdämmerung Siegfried, yes. I was interested in doing the older Siegfried and I offered it to Karajan some years ago and he accepted it. But he asked when I would sing Tristan and I replied that I would sing it for him any time, and he said we'd do it next year, so immediately the idea of doing Götterdämmerung went out the window because he was far more interested in my Tristan than in Siegfried.

http://www.bruceduffie.com/vickers.html

[lennygoran]

Thanks for all the info-btw I had forgotten but my records show it-I actually saw him in Parsifal-not just the Fidelio and as the bear in Bartered Bride-he was excellent! Fidelio was a close call-he was possibly ill for other performances of fidelio and maybe having a dispute with conductor Tennstedt?

[Met Performance] CID:280270
Parsifal {250} Matinee Broadcast ed. Metropolitan Opera House: 04/20/1985., Broadcast

(Broadcast)


Metropolitan Opera House
April 20, 1985 Matinee Broadcast


PARSIFAL {250}

Parsifal................Jon Vickers
Kundry..................Leonie Rysanek
Amfortas................Simon Estes
Gurnemanz...............Kurt Moll
Klingsor................Franz Mazura
Titurel.................Julien Robbins
Voice...................Batyah Godfrey Ben-David
First Esquire...........Diane Kesling
Second Esquire..........Gail Dubinbaum
Third Esquire...........Charles Anthony
Fourth Esquire..........Thomas Booth
First Knight............Michael Best
Second Knight...........Richard Vernon
Flower Maidens: Gail Robinson, Louise Wohlafka, Eleanor Bergquist
Betsy Norden, Loretta Di Franco, Isola Jones

Conductor...............James Levine

Regards, Len

[slofstra]

From the article I linked above.


"When I go home to my bed, to my home, I hope I'm just a dad to my kids, the son of a schoolteacher, just some guy who sings. I can't understand why they make such a fuss about it . But it's nice."

He says he feels he's talking about another person when asked to talk about his career, perhaps because he's so accustomed to portraying a character onstage. But his successful career all comes down to his strong, Bible-influenced upbringing.

"A lot of people see the opera world as a crazy sort of high-flying, jet-setting world where all sorts of immoralities take place. And it does, but they're just humans like everybody else."

Many people don't identify with opera because opera is an artform, and they can't come to terms with art, Vickers said.

"More and more, man denies he's a spiritual being. That kind of thinking infiltrates the art world, but art still asks important, penetrating question. If you grapple with those questions, they'll drive you to the centre of your being where you'll search for the answers," Vickers said.

He feels privileged to be a part of such a powerful artform.

[jserraglio]

Vickers was a very private individual who generally declined to be interviewed (including by Lebrecht, on several occasions). But some bits and pieces of his way of thinking about art can be found, such as his special bond with Karajan, his admiration for Callas, his post-retirement work on the melodrama Enoch Arden, with pianist Marc-André Hamelin.

A couple other lengthy 2 hour interviews by Jon Tolansky from 1996 and 1998 have been posted on the symphonyshare board. There he goes into great detail about his life and artistic views, also his controversial interpretation of Peter Grimes.

[THEHORN]

Vickers was a one of a kind opera singer . I can't think of anyone like him before or after . I think the role of Dalibor in Smetana's little known but compelling opera of the same name, night have been a great role for him .
A proud Czech knight who kills a nobleman because he murdered his best friend, and is sentenced to death . The sister of the murdered man comes to testify against him, yet is so impressed by his nobility and courage she falls in live with him and tries to set him free, even though both die in the attempt .

[jserraglio]

Vickers was a one of a kind opera singer . I can't think of anyone like him before or after . I think the role of Dalibor in Smetana's little known but compelling opera of the same name, night have been a great role for him .
A proud Czech knight who kills a nobleman because he murdered his best friend, and is sentenced to death . The sister of the murdered man comes to testify against him, yet is so impressed by his nobility and courage she falls in live with him and tries to set him free, even though both die in the attempt .

QTD From the article piston linked above:

BD: Are there roles that you've not done yet that you will do, or wish you had done earlier?

JV: Yes, I would love to have sung Palestrina. I would like to have sung Tiefland. I would like to have sung Dalibor by Smetana.

BD: In Czech?

JV: I don't think so. In honest truth, I have to confess that several times I was approached to do the role of Dalibor, but I always simply couldn't free myself. What is happening now is that opera companies are looking farther and farther ahead, and we can't free ourselves.

BD: I wish we could see you do Dalibor and Florestan in the same season.

JV: Yes, yes, to see the contrast.

[stenka razin]

March 1,1969-The Met-A day to remember. Check out this cast. Wow!.....and I was there!



Wagner-Die Walkure



Conductor

Herbert von Karajan


Brünnhilde

Birgit Nilsson


Sieglinde

Régine Crespin


Fricka

Josephine Veasey


Siegmund

Jon Vickers


Wotan

Theo Adam


Hunding

Martti Talvela


Regards,
Mel

[Ted Quanrud]

March 1,1969-The Met-A day to remember. Check out this cast. Wow!.....and I was there!



Wagner-Die Walkure



Conductor

Herbert von Karajan


Brünnhilde

Birgit Nilsson


Sieglinde

Régine Crespin


Fricka

Josephine Veasey


Siegmund

Jon Vickers


Wotan

Theo Adam


Hunding

Martti Talvela


Regards,
Mel

"Wow" is right, Mel. A dream cast. I envy your experience. My only occasion to see and hear Vickers onstage was some 17 years later at Chicago's Lyric Opera in what I believe was his penultimate Parsifal. The cast was excellent --Hans Sotin as Gurnemanz, Tatiana Trojans as Kundry, Sigmund Nimsgern as Amfortas and Matti Salminen as Titurel. Although 60 years old, Vickers was completely believable as the young Parsifal in a performance of such intensity that I still clearly remember it three decades later. He did not assume the role; he inhabited it; he became Parsifal.

These past few days, I have spent much time listening to Vickers -- Parsifal, Tristan, Siegmund, Florestan, Aeneas, Otello, Samson and Peter Grimes.. It is humbling and gratifying to be in the presence of such artistry.