GIULIO GARI FOUNDATION HONORS A MAJOR STAR AND SOME RISING ONES

 

Aprile Millo

The presence of esteemed and legendary soprano Aprile Millo must have been an inspiration for the young artists who entertained us Sunday at the annual Winner's Concert of the Giulio Gari Foundation. What a superb legacy of the late tenor! Awarding young singers is a not only a source of funding but an encouragement in a world that offers lots of heavy work for slim rewards.

Sunday's concert gave us the opportunity to acquaint ourself further with the gifts of seven young artists, all of whom  we have heard before and enjoyed. The splendid Mary Pinto accompanied them with flourish.

Let's do "ladies first"! We have reviewed Soprano Luna Seongeun Park a half dozen times recently, her having won awards from all of the award giving foundations in New York. What impressed us is her tackling so many different arias in different languages and styles and excelling at all of them. On Sunday, she commanded rapt attention from the audience as she created the character of Musetta who commands attention from the crowd at Café Momus in Puccini's La Bohême. 

Concluding the program was a duet with Son Jin Kim, in which she created a not-so-unwilling Zerlina who holds out for a credit card before exiting with the Don Giovanni of Mr. Kim, about whom more later. It was a clever wrinkle in Mozart's opera and the audience enjoyed it immensely. This gifted young soprano has many more roles ahead of her.

Mezzo-soprano Ruijia Dong employed a pleasing legato as she interpreted "O ma lyre immortale" from Gounod's lesser known opera Sappho. There was a divine depth and fine facility in French that pleased the ear. This was quite a change from our recollection of her weirdly costumed Ruggiero in Händel's Alcina at Mannes College for Music. As you may have guessed we prefer to focus on the voices than on trying to figure out some director's self important concept.

We really enjoyed Ms. Dong's performance of Angelina's final aria from Rossini's Cenerentola "Non più mesta". This is the test of any mezzo's mettle what with its rapid fire fioritura and large leaps. Our singer passed with flying colors and managed to also create a sympathetic character leaving us with pleasure at her "happy ever after" condition.

This was our second time hearing soprano Anna Thompson in a month, since she just won an award from The Gerda Lissner Foundation. She really got into the role of Rosalinde pranking her husband in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. Both slow and fast sections were compelling and the German was on point.

As for the men, the afore mentioned bass Son Jin Kim made a fine impression in this generally late maturing fach. He showed a real flair for comedy in Don Basilio's comic aria "La calunnia" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. His technical assurance permitted a gradual buildup of excitement and his well thought out gestures contributed to the success of the performance.

This very extroverted aria was finely contrasted with the more introspective "Cavatina" from Rachmaninoff's Aleko in which Mr. Kim sustained the sad mood of loss--loss of youth and loss of love,  since his fickle Zemfira has abandoned him for a young lover. There was an effective contrast between his melancholy first section and the second section in which he remembers a happier time.

We had one more opportunity to take the measure of Mr. Kim's talent when he took the role of Don Giovanni seducing Zerlina in Mozart's eponymous opera. So this marvelous  bass gave us a dose of fun, a dose of melancholy and one of manipulation, all within an hour!

We also got to hear two fine tenors. We first reviewed Ben Reisinger when he was a baritone and noted his superb upper register in "O vin, dissippe la tristesse"  from Thomas' Hamlet. Then we heard him at a master class when he was struggling with the transition. We are pleased to report that the transition is now a complete success. He completely captured Lensky's pathos in "Kuda, kuda" from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. An appropriate vibrato lent just the right color to his voice and his command of dynamics was best appreciated in a delicate and moving diminuendo. Furthermore he handled the linguistics well, not allowing the difficult consonants to cheat the vowels.

The other tenor Alec Carlson performed "O tu che in seno agli'angeli" from one of our favorite Verdi operas La Forza del Destino. We observed a fine Italianate embouchure, beautiful legato phrasing, and a reassuring lack of tension at the top of the register. The long held "money note" was lovely. We have reviewed Mr. Carlson a number of times, at competitions and at Santa Fe Opera. We are impressed that he has such a diverse repertoire.

We also heard a fine baritone who delighted the audience with "Some Enchanted Evening" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. We have no problem appreciating this as an aria from an American opera; but in spite of a worthy performance there was something missing, something cultural. The character of Emile de Becque is a specific one. He is French and he has his secrets. Falling in love with an American Army nurse was unexpected and the singer needs to convey the wonder of it all. Very few singers nowadays study the character and the situation, so performances tend to come across as generic and imitative. I hope that Yoonsoo Jang will put in a bit more work towards making the aria his own. We heard him recently creating the character of Dr. Malatesta in Donizetti's Don Pasquale so we know he is up to the challenge.

It was a fine evening and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with citizens of Planet Opera and to hear young artists who will carry the torch into the future. All we need is a small opera house in Manhattan so we can put them all to work!

© meche kroop

FROM CANON TO CREATION

 Cris Frisco, David Khang, Daniella Brancato, andYulin Wang

Sponsored by the Gerda Lissner Foundation, held in the studios of WQXR, and introduced by renowned announcer Midge Woolsey, a generous program of opera arias, duets, and ensembles featured students from Mannes Opera as well as esteemed graduates. As is our wont, we will focus our comments on the students. If we are still writing about opera ten years hence, we will no doubt be overlooking these students who we expect will by then have gained fame, and we will be writing about the next crop of emerging artists.

Although New York City is home to three conservatories of music, Mannes perhaps gets less love from us due to their focus on contemporary opera and definitely not due to any lack among their students. As a matter of fact, Arthur Levy and Glenn Morton (two of our favorite voice teachers) are on their faculty and have introduced us to some extraordinary young singers.

The enthusiastic audience showed equal appreciation for the famous graduates and the not yet famous students, regardless of their choice of repertory. From our point of view, however, performing "White Moon", one of Five Songs written by Ruth Crawford Seeger,  once a student at The New School (of which Mannes is a part) on the same program as "Song to the Moon" from Dvořak's Rusalka only served to point out the deficiencies of vocal compositions written in the past century. Nonetheless, mezzo-soprano Ruijia Dong used her beautiful instrument to make the former work vocally interesting and the text clear. In the Dvořak, soprano Daniella Brancato, tenderly accompanied by Bryan Wagorn's piano,  relished the composer's lavish melodies and simple sentiment, setting the bar way too high for the Crawford song which followed.

Staying with the lunar theme, we had the opportunity to revisit Huang Ro's An American Soldier  that we heard last year at the Perelman Performing Arts Center which strangely piped in the orchestra from somewhere else! How much better to hear a fine piano reduction sensitively played by Cris Frisco whilst soprano Hannah Cho and tenor Yulin Wang sang the "Moon Duet" facing away from one another, an appropriate stance since the ill-fated young soldier and his girl  are geographically separated. 

We enjoyed the opening duet a lot since baritone Sean Seungho Cha and bass-baritone David Kahng gave it their all, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in unison. "Suoni la tromba" from Bellini's I Puritani  was a fine choice to show off their musical and linguistic artistry. We noticed a definite focus on the embouchure and wondered whether that is emphasized in the tutelage at Mannes. It certainly produces a satisfying warm round sound.

We thought that soprano Adrinelle Chiesa deserved better than the aria she performed from an opera being workshopped. She gave a deeply felt performance and made ample use of gesture in a work with an uninteresting vocal line, although the piano part was quite lovely. Perhaps contemporary opera should be composed by singers!

We liked a duet called "Schönste Nacht" from a work Korngold wrote for Broadway that was not performed there but was eventually produced in Germany. It was performed by  mezzo-soprano Daria Tereshchenko and the aforementioned Mr. Cha.

We also enjoyed Yulin Wang's performance of "Salut! Demeure chaste et pure" from Gounod's Faust. Accompanied by Mr. Wagorn, he employed a lovely pianissimo that was well suited to a serenade. This was followed by the final trio from the opera in which Mr.Wang was joined by Ms. Brancato as Marguerite and Mr. Kahng as Mephistopheles.

Although much of the program was not our taste, we were happy to have gotten better acquainted with some of the excellent Mannes students. We vote for more  canon and less creation!

© meche kroop

MANNES DOES ALCINA

 David Khang, Zhedong Ren, Ruijia Dong, Brooke Jones, Maestro Geoffrey McDonald,

Marcella Astore, Jooyeon Park, and Yoonji Kim

The music of Händel is favorable for young voices and we were pleased that Mannes Opera chose one of his operas to showcase seven young and talented singers. We are pleased not only because we love his music but also because it means that these young singers will have learned a role that may lead to employment. Casting students in unknown contemporary operas has always seemed to us to be wasteful of the singers' time and efforts, inasmuch as they will likely never get to reprise the role. Alcina is one of our favorite Händel operas and we have seen it and enjoyed it a number of times.

Each character gets a chance to shine since each aria offers a ritornello that invites decoration of the vocal line-- as much as the singer can Händel.  (Sorry about that; we just couldn't resist.) The story is just one episode in a 16th c. epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto entitled Orlando Furioso. It is not necessary to know the entire poem to appreciate this 1735 opera seria but it is amusing to note that poor Bradamante has been pursuing Ruggiero throughout the entire epic, and also that the prolific Händel drew not one but three operas  (Orlando and Ariodante) from the same source.

In this episode, Ruggiero (mezzo-soprano Ruijia Dong) winds up on an enchanted island where the beautiful sorceress Alcina (soprano Brooke Jones) has seduced men and turned them into animals, plants, and rocks. Poor Bradamante (mezzo-soprano Marcella Astore) has disguised herself as her own brother and, accompanied by Ruggiero's former tutor Melisso (bass-baritone David Khang), come looking for Ruggiero.

Alcina's sister Morgana (soprano Jooyeon Park) instantly falls for the disguised Bradamante and casts aside her lover Oronte (tenor Zhedong Ren). The youth Oberto (soprano Yoonji Kim) is also on the island searching for his father Astolfo who had been converted into a beast.

As you can see Dear Reader, the plot is complicated but has to do with infatuation, seduction, betrayal, forgiveness, revenge, delusion and disillusionment. Having read the notes of Director Sam Helfrich a few hours after the conclusion of the opera, we were a bit surprised to learn that his interpretation of the themes were quite similar to ours.  We can understand his intention to highlight these themes but somehow presenting the work as a French farce didn't work. 

Set designer Daedalus Wainwright created a beautiful set which seemed to be early 20th century art nouveau, at least we recognized some pieces of furniture that reminded us of Musée D'Orsay in Paris. There was a divan, a chest, gorgeous lighting, and lots of doors which emphasized the dramatic entrances and exits of the performers. 

The costume designs of Camille Charara were disappointing. Ruggiero looked not a bit heroic. Bradamante was stuffed into an ill-fitting man's suit which appeared rather contemporary. Alcina might have looked more glamorous. Morgana and Oberto made out somewhat better. As a matter of fact, in terms of acting Ms. Kim's Oberto was most convincing, since it was sincere and underplayed. Oberto's reunion with his restored father was touching.

So, between the anachronism of contemporary clothing and the art nouveau set, magnified by substituting a pistol for the libretto-identified spear--well, we just didn't get it. It's no wonder we associated a French farce with characters  running in and out. 

This is not the only strange concept a director has imposed upon this opera. We reviewed one in Santa Fe that took place in a theater, and one in New York City in which Alcina's magic spell was produced by narcotics and all her victims had to endure withdrawal. We suppose there will never be a straight production of this opera so the best we could hope for is consistency within a given concept.

We decided to try to ignore the silly stage business and focus on the musical values which were fine. Maestro Geoffrey McDonald always brings out the best in musicians and the Mannes Orchestra did not disappoint. By a strange coincidence, the first time we heard Mo. McDonald conduct, it was at least ten years ago, in a chamber production of the same opera!

© meche kroop