PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS

Carlos Martinez, Elizabeth Pope, and Saul Ibarra Ramos

Last night's recital was presented at Juilliard as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Music being awarded to Saul Ibarra Ramos for his achievements in the field of collaborative piano. Our experience in the field of collaborative piano is rather limited to the  particular aspect in connection with the voice. German lieder are our bread and butter. It was for this reason that we dropped everything to hear this excellent recital.

Carrying the vocal part was the lovely soprano Elizabeth Pope whom we have enjoyed on prior occasions and who just so happens to be married to the pianist. We admit we are particularly interested in couples in this field with respect to how well they seem to pick up on each other's cues and also because we feel a concern for their future careers which can pull them in two separate directions or to two distant venues. Like everything else in life, there are pluses and minuses, rewards and risks

Let us focus now on the positives. The first half of the program featured Ms. Pope singing a selection of lieder in German, a song cycle in French, and an American song unknown to us.  Of major interest was an 1832 setting by Franz Lachner of a text by Heinrich Heine that we immediately recognized as having been set by Robert Schumann in 1840 as part of his cycle Dichterliebe. 

We are always surprised by the various interpretations different composers can give to the same text. Whereas Schumann's "Mein Traum" is rather engraved in our memory, we found interest in Lachner's setting which was new to us. Mr. Ibarra Ramos lent emphasis to the pulsing piano which made us think of the poet's pounding heart, whilst Ms. Pope affected a pianissimo dream like aspect which gradually built to a climax.

In a similar situation, Charles Ives set Heine's "Ich grolle nicht" while a student at Yale at the end of the 19th century. Lovers of lieder will of course recognize this lied as also belonging to Schumann's Dichterliebe and may recall the poet's rage and irony toward the woman who broke his heart. On the other hand, Ives (who probably never set another German text) portrayed the poet in a more wistful light, so well captured by our pianist and singer. We might add that Ms. Pope's soprano instrument has a bright clear tone and that her stage presence is inviting. In Liszt's "In Liebeslust" we liked the way she decorated the vocal line on the phrase "Ich liebe dich".  (We might hope for a little more consistency in the final "ch" but that is a small matter and easily rectified.)

A cycle of songs by Francis Poulenc entitled Calligrammes carried us in a different direction and revealed more delights in Ms. Pope's vocal technique and the delicate balance between her vocal line and the piano. "L'Espionne" revealed strength in the lower register. "Mutation" revealed the grim colors of despair over WWII. "Vers le sud" had our two artists giving warmth and gentleness to the love song, as we might have expected. "Il pleut" offered some racing figures in the piano. "La grâce exilée" involved a mood of resignation whereas "Aussi bien que les cigales" came across as a firm lecture. The concluding "Voyage" conveyed a suspenseful and wistful mood.

The remainder of the program gives us less to address. Our knowledge of piano music extends to what we have learned to play--Beethoven's "Fur Elise" and some easy pieces by Chopin. The dense texture of Rachmaninoff's Etudes-tableaux, from which Mr. Ibarra Ramos played "Appasionato", rather overwhelmed us as it sounded like an orchestra. We liked the rapid figures in the upper register and the peaceful ending after all that passion!

The final work on the program was Violin Sonata No. 1 by  Prokofiev in which our pianist's sensitivity toward the vocal line was directed now toward the excellent violinist Carlos Martinez. Our pianist gave an interesting brief talk about Prokofiev's energetic and unpretentious personality, explaining that this work was composed toward the end of his life when his health was compromised. The four movements alternated Andante with Allegro and it was a wild ride indeed between the two tempi.

Our knowledge of Prokofiev is confined to his programmatic score for the ballet Romeo and Juliet which is so filled with danceable rhythms and memorable melodies that we wind up humming for days afterward. This exposure to another side of the composer was surprising to say the least. It was a tour de force for Mr. Ibarra Ramos and also demonstrated some interesting techniques on the violin. What we heard as a glissando was really some legato bowing of a rapidly fingered scale passage.

An encore piece was played without a break. It was Prokofiev's arrangement of a Bach chorale and left us with a welcome feeling of peace after the tumultuous Sonata. Within our limited knowledge of most of the repertoire It seems to us that  Mr. Ibarra Ramos has a gift for listening to his musical partners and responding. That gift should carry him a long way in his career

© meche kroop

 

SENSATIONAL SOPRANO ARIAS

 Eduardo Gutierrez, Saul Ibarra, Elizabeth Pope, and François Gizycki

The sanctuary at Jt. Johns in the Village was "standing room only", a rare condition for a vocal recital in Manhattan. Apparently, word had gotten out that a remarkable young artist named Elizabeth Pope would be performing a challenging program of arias. We are happy to tell you that the promise was fulfilled. We love hearing singers at the start of their professional careers and following them as they mature and become successful on the world's stages.

Yes, the program was a challenging one, covering several periods and several languages. As extensive as was this survey of soprano arias, the audience begged for more and, trooper as she is, Ms. Pope gifted the audience with three encores.

Let us begin by saying that she is an engaging young woman who spoke easily to the audience, showing neither stiffness nor reserve. This created a welcoming atmosphere that drew us in collectively. Having come from a family of musicians                 (all present for the concert) and having received excellent vocal training, this young artist "picked up the ball and ran with it". It was clear that a lot of work and study had gone into the preparation of a most ambitious program but Ms. Pope succeeded in making it all appear effortless, even as she gave her all.

The program opened with "Tornami a vagheggiar" from Händel's Alcina which immediately gave evidence of a bright pure tone and a facility with ornamentation. The trill was clean as were the staccato passages. There was a nice contrast between the sections. Along the same lines was "Armate face et anguibus" from Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha Triumphans, in which the artist tore into this vengeance aria with a vengeance, making us think of the Queen of the Night. Her superlative collaborative pianist Saúl Ibarra was as undaunted by the racing piano score as she was by the florid decoration of the vocal line.

Was that the same artist switching easily to a 19th c. work-- Jules Massenet's Hérodiade? In "Il eat doux, il est bon" she showed us an adolescent girl besotted with the prophet Jean, and did so in fine French. 

This was far more effective dramatically than Violetta's first act scena "É strano..Sempre Libera" from Verdi's La Traviata. The vocalism was fine but, in spite of the generous use of gesture and facial expression, we were not convinced that this was a desperate woman weighing the choice between a chance at love and frantic partying. We think a few years of emotional experience on the part of the artist will result in a more convincing portrayal. We admit that we are very demanding of our Violettas since she is our favorite operatic character. Tenor Fernando Silva-Gorbea made an all-too-brief appearance as Alfredo but there was insufficient stage time to establish any chemistry between them.

Far more believable was her Nedda, the unfortunate heroine of Leoncavallo's        I Pagliacci. As Ms. Pope sang "Qual fiamma...Stridono lassú", we could feel the yearning for freedom of a young woman in unhappy marital "captivity", envying the birds overhead. This gave us optimism that the dramatic skills are there, just waiting to be coaxed out by a good director.

We felt the same about Fiordiligi's aria "Come scoglio" from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte. We wish that portraying a young woman with intended characterological firmness might come a bit more easily to Ms. Pope than it did. Perhaps negotiating those huge leaps in the score took a great deal of concentration. Focus on the character may come later as she develops. Perhaps it was the sophisticated sequined gown that was partly at fault, fighting, as it were, with the image of a teenage girl.

On the other hand, it did not distract from the half-mad desperation of Margherita from Boito's Mefistofele as she confusedly tries to deal with her guilt for poisoning her mother and drowning her baby. We haven't often heard "L'altra notte in fondo al mare" but we found it convincingly moving.

The program closed with an excellent performance of movements I and II from Heitor Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras no.5. We were impressed by the fact that Ms. Pope herself arranged the work for the cello, played by Francois Gizycki, and guitar, played by Eduardo Gutteres. In this work she achieved the heights of expressivity, especially in the vocalise part in which the cello emphasized the memorable theme whilst the guitar filled in the harmonies. Even more astounding was the humming part which left us amazed. Whilst Part I is often heard, Part II (Dança) is less commonly performed. The excitement made a fine contrast with the tender vocalise.

The first encore was a Maria Grever song "Te quiero, dijiste" which Grever wrote for a child she lost. It is a beautiful song with which we are quite familiar and we were happy to hear it once more. Following another encore, a song by Debussy, the audience wanted more. We got a repeat of the Bachianas Brasilieras and finally the audience was satisfied.

For any more, we will have to wait for Ms. Pope's next recital. We will be eager to watch her growth as an artist.

© meche kroop

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

 

Annija Dziesma Teteris, Eva Rae Martinez, Elizabeth Pope, and Angelina Yi

(Photo by Rezi Aliaj)

Henry Griffin and Feihong Yu

(photo by meche kroop)

David Freides and William Wake Foster

(photo by meche kroop)

If you wanted to introduce someone to opera, you could not have done better than to take them to see and hear a completely captivating production of Monteverdi's masterpiece L'incoronazione di Poppea, a work created for mid-17th c. Venice during Carnevale. We could go on for pages about scholarly disputes but we prefer to discuss our rapturous joy at the entertainment value and our astonishment by the astounding talents of the cast, drawn from Manhattan School of Music's Undergraduate Opera Theater.  Yes, you read that right!

Musical values were first-rate on all accounts with Maestro Jackson McKinnon leading his chamber orchestra, half-hidden behind the simple set (designed by James Rotondo). Judicious cuts were made but there was no loss of continuity. The vocalism left nothing to be desired and the fact that these undergraduates handled the challenges of baroque singing with such aplomb is a source of astonishment.

Librettist Giovanni Busenello created characters from Roman history and bent their characteristics and fates to his own devices, telling a story of the triumph of love in the person of Cupid winningly portrayed by Angelina Yi; she interrupts a competitive quarrel between Virtue (Sara Nichole Stevens) and Fortune (Sophia Strang) and recounts the story  proving that Love supersedes everything else.

Drusilla (winsomely portrayed by Feihong Yu) is enamored of Ottone (the dramatically hilarious Henry Griffin); he is crazy about the beautiful Poppea (portrayed by the beautiful Eva Rae Martinez) who is passionately in love with the Emperor Nerone (Elizabeth Pope) who returns her lust to the detriment of his rejected wife Ottavia (performed in drag by David Freides to the great amusement of the audience).

Without any prompting from the director we had our own associations to a certain political figure who also might have said  "I care nothing for the senate and the people". Given the freedom to let our thoughts wonder we couldn't help thinking of the lamenting Countess in Mozart's Nozze di Figaro. Unlike the Countess, Ottavia is vengeful and blackmails Ottone into killing her rival Poppea,for whom he has the hots. Poor Drusilla is dragged into the plot and the cross-dressing that ensues is cause for more amusement.

We have no idea how the audience of the time took this work but perhaps, with knowledge of the unhappy ends suffered by all the characters, they saw the work as ironic.  Although the ending is relatively happy, with Poppea being crowned Empress and Ottavia, Drusilla, and Ottone being exiled, it lacks historical verisimilitude, but reaffirms the triumph of love.

Now, looking at how a 21st c. audience sees the work, that is in the hands of the director; in this case we have the imaginative Chloe Treat, whose last name describes our reception of the production. Although we have protested vociferously against trashing the classics of the canon by means of "concept", we have no such compunction about long forgotten works  that have no prior emotional investment for us. Indeed, we have enjoyed a number of productions of this opera in the past ten years (available by entering the name of the opera in the search bar) and this one is the most original.

Lacking a television, we did not realize the style was meant to be that of reality television, a fact we only learned after the opera by reading the program notes. Lacking that knowledge did not impair our appreciation of the humor in any way and we look forward to seeing more of Ms. Treat.

The contributions of Costume Designer Fan Zhang added greatly to the style of the show. Poppea lounged around in Schiaparelli pink fuzzy slippers and skimpy shift. For the coronation she rocked a slinky red gown. Drusilla and Ottone wore the same Little Bo-Peep dress in their plot to kill Poppea. The philosopher Seneca (sung in wonderful bass tones by William Wake Foster) sported a sequined jacket with little red hearts which was appropriated by Cupid. Other characters wore black tee shirts and trousers which set off the more colorful costumes.

Among them were two "cosmeticians" serving Poppea and Ottavia--Arnalta (Caspian Noble Fernholz) and Damigella (Angelina Bush). Mercury (Brian Kim) came to announce Seneca's death in a suit and tie- reminiscent of the "Todesverkündigung"  in Wagner's Die Walküre. Charlotte Jakobs and Isaac Hall added even more merriment as fumbling security guards.

There was a lot of risqué humor but nothing the kiddies haven't seen on TV. There was an abundance of glorious melody, culminating in the final duet between Poppea and Nero-"Pur ti miro, pur ti godo". Where else have we had this much fun at the opera?

© meche kroop