AND STILL MORE RUSSIAN

Jinhee Park and Rebecca Farley

Last night's liederabend at Juilliard impressed us on two counts. Firstly, we got to increase our rather newly established appreciation of Russian song. Secondly, we got to hear some singing in English that was comprehensible, a feature that is rarely the case. For the Russian we have Natalia Katyukova to thank since she coached last night's students in the Vocal Arts Department. We were pleased that each singer and collaborative pianist introduced her/himself and told something about the works they were going to sing.

Baritone Dimitri Katotakis opened the program with a quartet of songs by the 20th c. composer Georgy Sviridov--two from the early stage of his composing career and two from the late stage. Fortunately, there are places in the world where serialism and 12-tone experimentation were ignored! If we did not grasp all the themes of the poetry outlined by Mr. Katotakis, we did observe that he thought about what he was singing and filled the songs with meaning. 

Much of the text involved bells--all kinds of bells from sleigh bells to those in the belfry--and collaborative pianist Adam Rothenberg made each one clarion clear. Our favorite song was the spirited "Winter's Road" in which Pushkin's text describes an eager lover on his way across a snowy landscape to join his sweetheart. The artists created an aural picture.

Mezzo-soprano Nicole Thomas, accompanied by pianist Dror Baitel, sang a pair of songs by Nikolai Medtner and a pair by Sergei Rachmaninov--all of them about flowers.  She described the drama of Medtner's approach as contrasted with Rachmaninov's more delicate approach to the fragility of flowers. 

Goethe's text for "Das Veilchen" had been so exquisitely set by Mozart over a century earlier and, in our opinion, could not be improved upon.  In Medtner's hands the charming tale became a bit heavy-handed for our taste. But we enjoyed Ms. Thomas' singing and Mr. Baitel's lavish piano accompaniment.

Russia has always had a thing for the French, so it was not too surprising that Aleksandrt Grechaninov, a student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, set selections from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal.  Once again we heard yet another setting of "L'invitation au voyage" but remain attached to the Henri Duparc setting, although there is nothing shabby about the lesser-known setting by Emmanuel Chabrier. Accompanied by Sora Jung, tenor Chance Jonas-O'Toole performed this and two others in a pleasantly sweet tenor. We think there is room for improvement in his French.

Baritone Dominik Belavy, whose second language is English, impressed us with the clarity of his diction in Charles Ives' "Tom Sails Away". We have heard him before and love the mellow sound of his voice; last night we found something new to appreciate. To tell a story one needs to make every word clear, and he did. 

Although his German is equally fine as was his delivery of Ives' setting of "Ich grolle nicht", this is another case where an earlier setting was infinitely superior.  Robert Schumann set Heinrich Heine's text in his cycle Dichterliebe with many compositional devices to highlight the irony. The placement of accents and chromaticism are just perfect.  The Ives did not achieve anything close.

Although we did not understand Mr. Belavy's choice to pair Ives' songs with those of the 20th c. composer Pavel Haas, we surely did enjoy them. Haas was a Jewish Czech composer who set Chinese poetry whilst confined in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt, after which he was transferred to Auschwitz and gassed. In spite of the tragedy of his curtailed life, he left behind a fair amount of music.

Notably, Mr. Belavy translated the Czech (which had been translated from Wang Wei's original text by Bohumil Matthesius). If something was lost in this double translation, we know not but we do know that we appreciated Mr. Belavy's singing in Czech, especially after hearing Jamie Barton discussing the difficulties of this enterprise! Mr. Haas had a unique compositional style which pianist Rosa Li interpreted beautifully.

The program ended with soprano Rebecca Farley singing Samuel Barber's "Knoxville Summer of 1915". The text was extracted from a so-called "prose poem" by James Agee that later became the prologue to his book A Death in the Family. It was beautifully and expressively sung but has never resonated with us. We cannot think of many instances in which we have enjoyed prose set to music. It seemed to us that the text was tortured into place reminding us of a tailor trying to make a garment fit a body with lots of bulges.

Nonetheless, the piece is often heard in vocal recitals and many people love it for its nostalgia. We are looking forward to hearing Ms. Farley's solo recital on Feb 16th to see how she sounds in a variety of material.  Her collaborative pianist Jinhee Park had a chance to shine in the instrumental interlude and did a fine job creating the sounds of the streetcar--the iron whining, the bell ringing, and the spark crackling were all heard. Good job!

(c) meche kroop

FLIGHT OF THE DOVE

Xiaomeng Zhang, Natalia Kutateladze, Dimitri Katotakis, Kelsey Lauritano, Jakub Jozef Orlinski, Steven Osgood, Rebecca Farley, Amanda Lynn Bottoms, Nicolette Mavroleon, Matthew Swensen, and Cody Quattlebaum

Jonathan Dove's Flight arrived safely at Juilliard International Airport this week, piloted by Steven Osgood and James Darrah;  all singers aboard merit a champagne toast in the Arrivals Lounge! The flight originated at Glyndebourne in 1998 and made 85 stops across Europe, Australia, and the USA. Arrivals were met with laughter and much applause.

Is there anything the singers of The Juilliard Opera cannot master?  We think not! Composer Jonathan Dove was fortunate in having as librettist April de Angelis who based the story loosely on the real life tale of an Iranian refugee who was stranded for 18 years at Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988 due to immigration bungling. The story is irresistible and inspired a 2006 Steven Spielberg film starring Tom Hanks, entitled Terminal.

Our hero is a refugee who (we learn toward the end of the opera) smuggled himself to London in the wheel of a plane; his less fortunate brother fell "like a frozen star", bearing the refugee's papers. After we giggled through most of the opera, this revelation added a note of tragedy; Shakespeare's comedies also added tragedy to the mix.

The role was sung by countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski whose otherworldly angelic voice was perfect for the part. His physicality augmented his vocal artistry to evoke feelings of sympathy, not exactly felt by the motley group of passengers in the departure lounge, each of whom is obsessed with his/her own problems.

Soprano Nicolette Mavroleon and tenor Matthew Swensen beautifully portrayed a bickering couple on their way to a resort where they hope to rekindle the romance they once enjoyed earlier in their marriage. She is going by the book--a marriage manual--and wanting more sexual adventure.  She gets more than she bargained for.

Diplomat Xiaomeng Zhang, a mellifluous baritone, has accepted a post in Minsk but his very pregnant wife, sung by mezzo-soprano Natalia Kutateladze backs out at the last minute, terrified of the new responsibility of motherhood and the loss of her freedom. Her water breaking onstage was probably a dramatic first. Any woman who has been pregnant would understand her ambivalence.

Cabin personnel mezzo-soprano Kelsey Lauritano and baritone Dimitri Katotakis have the hots for each other and their attempts to copulate provide even more humor. Their singing was as enthusiastic as their lovemaking.

Mezzo-soprano Amanda Lynn Bottoms used her lovely voice to portray une femme d'un certain age who has come to the airport to await a young lover she had met on vacation, a man who will never come. As funny as she is, her plight is a sad one as she sings of her loneliness.

Credit all the above artists for their gorgeous singing, fine acting, and sympathetic portrayals.

Not so sympathetic is the ice cold Controller, sung with steely tone by soprano Rebecca Farley. She seems to oversee the action and does not like people at all.  She would like to have The Refugee's attention all for herself.

The Immigration Officer was portrayed by bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum who does not sing until the last scene but was worth waiting for; he even relents a bit in his authoritarian posturing after listening to The Refugee's tale of woe.

The problem of refugees is even more severe now than when the opera was written, making the presentation of this work even more timely. The Refugee wants to make friends very badly--to win favors from the passengers of course--and uses all kinds of manipulative strategies to gain his ends. People turn their backs and a blind eye toward his hunger and loneliness.

The work is powerful.  We laugh and we cry.

Mr. Dove's music is infinitely more accessible than most contemporary operas. Conductor Steven Osgood made the most of the superlative musicians of The Juilliard Opera. The sound of planes taking off and the sound of the storm that interrupted the expected stream of departures were particularly well orchestrated and performed.

Director James Darrah's sure hand provided laughs aplenty in the well-considered stage business. He is endlessly creative.

Ellen Lenbergs designed the spare modern airport lounge, lit by Cameron Jaye Mock. Adam Larsen was responsible for the video projections of blue sky, clouds, and hopeful dawn when the storm ends. Mattie Ullrich's costumes were colorful and well suited to the characters. The Older Woman was particularly colorful as she worried about being conspicuous.

It is rare that we experience a contemporary opera in a positive fashion. There were no arias that we could walk out humming. But the diction was clear (with surtitles for when it wasn't) and the ensemble work was glorious. We would even consider seeing Flight again at some point in the future, which is more than we could say for other contemporary works. Still, we couldn't imagine a production as successful as this one.

(c) meche kroop