LIEDERABEND AT JUILLIARD

Gregory Feldmann, Thomas West, Kathryn Henry, Minjung Jung, Nathaniel LaNasa, Jinhee Park, and Tamara Banješević

We enjoyed another fulfilling Liederabend at Juilliard yesterday.  The lovely soprano Vivian Yau opened the program with some interesting songs written by Rebecca Clarke, a composer heretofore unknown to us, who seemed to be drawn to poetry of a mystical nature. Ms. Yau's beautiful timbre was well suited to the ethereal nature of the songs; her collaborative pianist Ji Yung Lee contributed some delicate arpeggi and the two artists matched each other in dynamics with some gorgeous pianissimi, well suited to the material.

Baritone Thomas West performed the next set with collaborative pianist Mariel Werner. We look forward to hearing Mr. West sing something more sympathetic to our ears. The 20th c. songs sung in English were not to our taste, and the English diction was largely unclear. For us, the problem lay in the text.

The only text we might have enjoyed (Hilaire Belloc's "Tarantella") had short punchy rhymed phrases and was set to rapid fire music by Witold Lutoslawski that was entirely as grim as the final verse. We might have enjoyed it more if Lutoslawski had set us up with something frisky and then punched us in the gut at the end. We only had this thought upon returning home and reading the text which was not clear during the performance. Unfortunately, the hall was very dim and we couldn't follow along.

The late 19th c. songs of Edvard Grieg were far more appealing and the performance of Tamara Banješević was compelling. Jinhee Park made a sympathetic piano partner and the two of them performed four selections from Sechs Lieder in happily comprehensible German. Perhaps it is the crisp consonants of German that make it so much better to sing than English.

We were held spellbound throughout. Grieg wisely chose text by Heinrich Heine for "Gruss",   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for "Zur Rosenzeit",  and Emanuel von Geibel for the romantic "Ein Traum", which we never tire of hearing. Grieg succeeded in enhancing the words with his music; Ms. Banješević and Ms. Park succeeded in enhancing both text and music with their deeply felt performance.  It is exactly what one hopes to find in a lieder recital.

Pianist Nathaniel LaNasa was a worthy piano partner for baritone Gregory Feldmann. We particularly enjoyed the way he evoked the rolling waves in Alexander Zemlinsky's "Nun schwillt der See so bang".  Mr. Feldmann has a lovely timbre in his instrument and excellent German diction. 

Although contemporaneous with Mahler and Strauss, Alexander Zemlinsky is not as frequently performed. We were glad to be introduced to his oeuvre but did not feel compelled to seek out more of his songs. We found "Tod in Ähren" to be unrelievedly grim, whilst "Der Tag wird kühl" offered the two artists multiple opportunity for variety in the color palette.

What would a lieder recital be without some Richard Strauss! Thanks to soprano Kathryn Henry and pianist Minjung Jung, we heard three songs--all setting of text by Heinrich Heine, whose poetry was wisely taken up by so many composers.

The tessitura of "Mit deinen blauen Augen" seemed low for the soprano fach but Ms. Henry handled it beautifully. In "Schlechtes Wetter", Heine sees a small woman tottering down the street on a dark and stormy night; he speculates that she is shopping for ingredients to bake a cake for her spoiled daughter. What an interesting imagination!  But it gives the soprano ample story telling opportunity. 

In "Frühlingsfeier" Heine describes a disturbing picture of some wild women lamenting the loss of the beautiful youth Adonis in a pagan ritual. This Springtime ritual symbolizes the death and rebirth undergone by la belle nature. This song really requires Strauss' full orchestration but  Ms. Henry and her excellent piano partner Minjung Jung went a long way toward creating the wild passion.

Another great experience presented by the Juilliard Vocal Arts Department, this one curated and coached by Cameron Stowe.  Keep 'em coming!

(c) meche kroop

DOUBLY TALENTED

Minjung Jung and Ji Yung Lee at uilliard Morse Hall

Last night was a chance for Ji Yung Lee to shine with dual artistry. She appeared first as a singer, offering three selections from Richard Strauss' Mädchenblumen in which the text compares different flowers to different types of women. This is an opportunity for the singer to exhibit different colors and moods, which this lovely soprano had no difficulty achieving.

Her bright soprano sounded beautiful in the upper register, but we could best appreciate her facility with German in "Epheu" which has a lower tessitura.  Our only complaint was the use of the music stand. This loathed piece of stage furniture was used for the entire recital, to our dismay. The collaborative pianist for the Strauss was the excellent Minjung Jung.

For the remainder of the program, Ms. Lee served as collaborative pianist; it would be an understatement to say that we are impressed when an artist can do justice to two fields. 

Her accompaniment of bass William Guanbo Su was excellent; she has a real feel for Brahms. We confess to a certain antipathy for this composer's  Vier Ernste Gesänge largely due to their pious nature. The Bible comes in last in our appreciation of literature. We far prefer the sanguine Brahms with his lighthearted folk songs and ironic romantic despair.

That being said, a wonderful singer can nudge our appreciation in a positive direction and this was accomplished by Mr. Su whose richly textured instrument and expressive coloration went a long way toward alleviating the tedium of the preachy text.  He was particularly fine in the lowest end of the register.  Now, if only he could abandon the music stand!

If mezzo-soprano Marie Engle continued this connection-blocking habit, we were feeling more tolerant since she was a last minute replacement for the ailing Kady Evanyshyn. We are sure she has studied Schumann's Frauenliebe und -leben for some time, however, because she invested the work with all the various moods and colors called for by the text.

Ms. Engle has a pleasant voice quality and a fine command of German. Her interpretation of the earlier songs dealing with naiveté, excitement and girlish glee were right on point. That she was also able to convey shock and sorrow came as a surprise to us since that emotion is more difficult to convey by acting. In the final song, she employed a wider vibrato that added to the depiction of grief and despair.

It was in the affecting major/minor shifts that the two artists showed their stuff, leading to a very effective performance in spite of the music stand! We would love to hear this pair perform the same cycle off the book.  Put it on my wishlist!

(c) meche kroop

THE BEST FREE SHOW IN TOWN

Chris Reynolds, Yoon Lee, Natalia Katyukova, Jessica Niles, Nathaniel LaNasa, Kady Evanyshyn, Jacob Scharfman, Anneliese Klenetsky, and Ji Yung Lee

We really missed the Liederabend programming at Juilliard over the summer and are happy to note that the program got off to a stellar start yesterday with a magnificent program, curated and coached by Natalia Katyukova, accompanied by Chris Reynolds, Yoon Lee, and Ji Yung Lee. Over the past few years we have watched the audience grow from a smattering of lieder lovers to a throng. This fame is well deserved. One could not have found a better recital at any price.

It was admirable that each of the four featured singers took the stage with confidence, introduced her/himself, and told enough about their chosen work so that we in the audience could appreciate their involvement. We wish more recitalists did the same. A singer of lieder is a conduit through which the poet speaks and the composer resounds. Their individual interpretations can give new life to familiar works or introduce us to material that may be new to us.

Mezzo-soprano Kady Evanyshyn opened the program with five lovely songs by Clara Schumann. This is a composer who speaks  (sings) to us with Austrian Romanticism in full flower. Readers know how much we love melody! It was obvious from the first note that Ms. Evanyshyn loves Clara's music as much as we do. We are always elated to see her somewhat overlooked oeuvre on a program.

The wise choice of text goes halfway toward making a memorable song. Heinrich Heine's text is almost always a great choice. "Ich stand in dunklen Traumen" is a mournful tale of love and loss while "Sie liebten sich beide, doch keiner" is a more ironic story of love never realized--perhaps an even greater loss.

"Die Lorelei" is one of Heine's horror stories and allowed Ms. Evanyshyn and her collaborative pianist Ji Yung Lee the opportunity to indulge in totally different coloration with the rippling in the piano suggesting the waves and both artists conveying a sense of urgency.

It was a welcome relief to hear the peaceful "Der Mond kommt still gegangen". The final selection was "Am Strande", a German translation of Robert Burns' poem "Musing on the roaring ocean".

Ms. Evanyshyn has a lovely and gracious stage presence, using only minimal gesture and allowing the text and musical phrasing to shine through. She never allows her gifts to steal attention from the music.

Next on the program was soprano Anneliese Klenetsky with Chris Reynolds as collaborative pianist. She too introduced herself with grace and enthused about her discovery that Benjamin Britten set some Russian text. This was a discovery for us too and we found the songs as unsettling as Ms. Klenetsky did. The text for this cycle, The Poet's Echo, was written by one of Russia's preeminent poets Alexander Pushkin. The cycle struck us as the cry of despair from being unheard.

The performance was superb and Ms. Klenetsky captured the inherent drama with a self-possessed maturity and conveyed the mood of these non-pretty songs. Our favorite was "Angel" in which the gentleness of an angel overcomes the sullenness of Satan. 

In "The nightingale and the rose" we loved the way Mr. Reynolds captured the song of the nightingale on the piano. In "Lines Written During a Sleepless Night" the melody wanders in a searching manner the way an insomniac searches for sleep.

We love the sound of Russian and our love grows the more we become familiar with its sound. We would have to say that we enjoy Rachmaninov more than Britten and soprano Jessica Niles began by telling the audience how she chose these songs for their imagery and, indeed we could see through her eyes and hear through her voice.

We think it made quite a difference that she translated the songs herself since she seemed to know exactly what she was singing about, giving each phrase a sense of movement toward the "goal note". These are luscious songs and each one carries a mood of its own, all well captured by Ms. Niles and Yoon Lee, her collaborative pianist.

"At Night in My Garden" tells of a willow whose tears will be wiped away by the tresses of the poet. Such a tender picture! All sadness disappeared with the joy of "The Daisies". There is unmistakeable charm in "The Pied Piper" whom we wanted to follow. "Dream" was filled with wonder and was a fine antidote to Britten's song about insomnia!

Bringing the program to a stunning close was baritone Jacob Scharfman who introduced the songs of Erich Korngold and told of Korngold's birth in Austria and his success as a composer of music for film in Hollywood. Strangely, this was news to us since we always thought of him as the composer of the opera Die Tote Stadt! The songs were written by Korngold when he was still a wunderkind in his native Austria. Mr. Scharfman shared with the audience the reason for his choice; his forebears were also Austrian Jews.

The songs have an Early 20th c. feel and some of the lavishness of Richard Strauss. Mr. Scharfman also did much of his own translation. "Reiselied" is a most cheerful and energetic song of optimism, a setting of text by Joseph von Eichendorff, one of our favorite poets for lieder. "Osterreichischer Soldatenabschied" allowed shifts of mode from the piano of the wonderful Nathaniel LaNasa which were reflected vocally by Mr. Scharfman.

Perhaps our favorite was "Nachts" which conveyed a mysterious and elusive mood, emphasized by a repetitive motif in the piano involving alternation of a whole step, much slower than a trill. The program ended with "Versuchung"--a rather puzzling text.

Mr. Scharfman's performance was marked by the expansiveness of a generous spirit and a personal involvement with the text and music. There was a lovely resonance to his instrument and fine German diction.

All in all it was a delightful treat to hear such fine artistry. One could not have heard better at any price. If you haven't attended a Liederabend at Juilliard, you owe it to yourself to enjoy such a treat. But be advised that tickets are free and can disappear rapidly.

(c) meche kroop

JOYCEEEEEEE

Yesterday we were privileged to sit in on Joyce DiDonato's Master Class at Juilliard. Brian Zeger, Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Department, gave her the introduction merited by her artistry and accomplishments in the field and pointed out that she has been given an Honorary Doctorate at this esteemed institution. The class was live-streamed for a wider audience than could fit into Paul Hall.

If you are wondering about the title of this review, all those extra "E's" stand for Education, Enlightenment, Entertainment, Exhilaration, and Excitement--all of which marked the two hour class that we wished had lasted longer.

The participants were students pursuing advanced degrees in the Vocal Arts Department, all of whom showed evidence of superlative training. What Ms. DiDonato contributed was in the nature of fine tuning their artistry with intuitive observations and suggestions. She began by pointing out that the class was not a performance but a playground in which the singers could try out new things. It is the process that is important.

There were concepts that seemed to apply to one and all. First of all is the importance of analysis of the character. The singer must figure out why the character enters onstage and the reason the character makes his/her exit. Physical gestures reveal the underlying feeling. The singer must have his/her own point of view but be sufficiently flexible to make adjustments, according to the wishes of the director.  But never enter an audition or competition with the anticipation of what is expected.

Once the singer has learned the aria thoroughly, the singer must give attention to making choices and never allow the performance to become automatic. If there is a repeat, think about the reason for repeating.  Hear the harmony in the accompaniment but feel the rhythm.

Ms. DiDonato has a particular affection for recitativi. This is where the singer reveals his/her artistry. With the three women singers we heard, focus was mainly on the recit. Their collaborative pianist was the excellent and always supportive Chris Reynolds. All of them were transformed by their 25 minute session!

Mezzo-soprano Nicole Thomas worked on "Sein wir wieder gut" from Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. The Composer is 18 years old and love has hit him like a coup de foudre. He is hormonal and emotionally extravagant. His volatility is expressed by the music being "off the beat". (This is not the same as Cherubino who is constantly in love.) The manic energy must be supported by clear diction to get over the dense orchestration. The "z" sound of "Sein" must be clear.

Soprano Tamara Banjesevic worked on "Eccomi in lieta vesta" from Bellini's I Capuleti  i Montecchi. From the beginning "Eccomi", the singer must project innocence and purity. She is looking at herself dressed for a wedding to a man she does not wish to marry.  The pain must also show but not self pity. Giulietta is seeing herself in a mirror.  If the singer sees it, the audience will see it.

Soprano Felicia Moore worked on Elettra's aria "Oh smania!"--or at least the recit part--from Mozart's Idomeneo. The singer must dig into the text.  It is important to emphasize the  "zm" sound of "smania". An accompanied recit is like a conversation between the singer and the orchestra. This involves intense listening for the underlying harmonies and key changes. Specifically, in this recit, there is a switch to the major mode and the singer must understand why and sell it to the audience. Slowing down gives the singer a chance to register the emotional journey.

Tenor Joshua Blue alone got to sing an aria, accompanied by Ji Yung Lee on the piano. If there is one tenor aria that is ridden with cliche, it is "Una furtiva lagrima" from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. Ms. DiDonato got rid of all the stuff by asking Mr. Blue to sing it to her, as if he were telling his best friend about his new discovery. This made a world of difference. It became sharing instead of "acting". 

He was also encouraged to imagine an unbroken thread of sound to produce the necessary legato. This resulted in a more Italianate sound without his pretending to be an "Italian tenor". The repeated phrases were given new meaning and new life.

A few minutes were saved at the end for a Q and A. The point that stuck in our mind was about career development--that tenacity comes from within, not from teachers or coaches. We are cognizant of the difficulties faced by young singers and have made observations that support Ms. DiDonato's comment. It is a journey and it is never helpful to compare oneself to others. Ms. DiDonato pointed out that her very own career got off to a slow start.  Each one is on a different journey. Live it!

(c) meche kroop