Operatic Arias For Bass

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Cat No: 8557442

Release Date: 03 January 2006

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313244225

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Operatic Arias for Bass

Description
Operatic Arias sung by Hao Jiang Tian The Beijing-born bass Hao Jiang Tian has long made a habitof challenging expectations. First there is his distinctive operatic career,which he has carved not merely in orientalist backdrops like Puccini's Turandotbut in the squarely Eurocentric landscapes of Verdi and Rossini. Then there'shis upbringing during the Cultural Revolution, which he neither hides nordownplays but partly credits for shaping his subsequent path.'Growing up, I hated music', he admits, explaining thatEuropean repertoire was inextricable from the piano lessons he endured at thebehest of his conductor father and composer mother, both musicians with thePeople's Liberation Army. The sound on the street was propaganda, not art, andwhen all western music became banned, the twelve-year-old Tian happily joinedin the national efforts by destroying his parents' prized record collection.When the family was later forced to move from Beijing for political 're-education', the boy discovered a recording that had escaped hisearlier wrath. It was Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, the last piece hisfather had conducted in public. 'He was silent for a minute', Tian recalls. 'Thenhe said, "Let's play" -- very softly, of course, because it wasdangerous. He began to tell me for the first time what the music was all about,and little by little I saw this severe man shine with a natural beauty in hiseyes. I thought, any music that could change my father like this must be verypowerful'.For the next decade, however, the young convert's educationin western culture was sporadic at best. Although he subsequently learned toimprovise on the piano (a skill that would earn him money at a Denver piano barafter moving to the United States to study in the mid-1980s), his clandestinestudy of western culture was from stolen, forbidden books. Assigned to afactory manufacturing heavy machinery, Tian held hushed, if passionate,discussions with like-minded co-workers. 'I remember I nearly killed a man', hesays with an embarrassed smile. 'I thought the story of La Traviata wasone of the most beautiful things I'd ever read, and he called Violetta a whore'.After the Cultural Revolution, Tian's climb onto the operaticstage began with two fortuitous steps: first, his acceptance into there-inaugural class of Beijing's newly reopened Central Conservatory, andsecond, his studies with the Italian baritone Gino Bechi, the first western operastar invited to teach in China. Tian, who had never seen a western opera,auditioned with a Schubert Lied, much to Bechi's chagrin. 'He said I hada nice voice, but he could only help me if I wanted to sing opera. I had no ideawhat that meant, but I said, "Yes, Maestro, I want to be an opera singer"'.Now a veteran of the world's most prominent opera stages,Tian has established a particularly close relationship with New York'sMetropolitan Opera, where he has appeared every season since 1991. From his Metdebut as Billy Jackrabbit in La fanciulla del West (
Tracklisting