NAVIDAD ESPAÑOL

BRUNO PEÑA, AMAYA ARBERAS, ALBERT CARBONELL AND CORO CASA GALICIA

We spent a most satisfying evening yesterday at Casa Galicia in Astoria, Queens. Not only were we royally entertained and well fed but we managed to learn something new about Spain.  Galicia is in the northwest corner of the country, bordering Portugal, and retains its own identity.  Half of the inhabitants speak Galician which is close to Portuguese.  Casa Galicia is a home away from home for Galician folk in New York and provides a center for cultural identity, maintaining a music school for the youth.

Two stars of the musical firmament provided the excellent entertainment.  The excellent soprano Amaya Arberas opened the program with selections from Händel's Nine German Arias, HWV 202-210.  This work is said to be the inspiration for Haydn's Die Schöpfung, inasmuch as the text refers to the creation of the universe. We particularly enjoyed the aria about the creation of flowers and the one about the rolling of the waves. There were multiple melismatic passages of great beauty.

Ms. Arberas, whose Spanish singing we have reviewed several times, showed her facility in German; following this group of songs she sang in Italian--a lovely aria by Claudio Monteverdi "Quel sguardo sdegnosetto", offering the opportunity to show off her ease with fioritura. Accompaniment by Albert Carbonell was by electronic keyboard since a harpsichord was nowhere to be seen or heard.  It sufficed.

Bruno Peña was onstage to contribute some gorgeous pieces for violin.  He performed "Meditación" from Jules Massenet's Thaïs with great sensitivity and Pablo Sarasate's "Playera" with suitable Spanish passion.  Many phrases concluded with the rhythmic "fa-mi-do" we love so well, often heard in flamenco guitar.

Although our taste favors the Classical, we confess to enjoying the second half of the program in which our versatile Ms. Arberas gave the jazziest rendition of James Lord Pierpont's "Jingle Bells" we have ever heard, overcoming our fatigue with Christmas music.  The chorus of Casa Galicia entertained with a program of Christmas carols from many lands, sung mostly in Spanish.  The audience favorite was clearly José Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad"  the melody of which has been running through our head all night, as good melodies tend to do.

What a privilege to spend an evening exploring another culture!  If we were a food critic we would go on and on about the generous meal that followed but we will close here and wish our readers a very Happy Holiday season.  There will most likely be a break in reviewing until the new year.  We have enjoyed sharing our opinions with you during 2014 and look forward to the many fine musical events coming up in 2015.

ⓒ meche kroop

 

A TRIO WOWS A FULL HOUSE

Ken Noda, Matthew Polenzani, Corinne Winters

The George London Foundation for Singers got their recital series off to a stellar start with yesterday's recital.  The "trio" that wowed a "full house" comprised celebrated tenor Matthew Polenzani, rising star soprano Corinne Winters and beloved collaborative pianist Ken Noda in a well-thought-out program that gave each artist a chance to shine.  We know Mr. Polenzani only from his onstage appearances at the Metropolitan Opera and Ms. Winters only from her enchanting performances with the New York Festival of Song.  What a treat to see and hear Mr. P. up close and personal and to hear Ms. W. treat a New York audience to the kind of singing for which she has been acclaimed worldwide.

She has a rich resonance in her voice, belying the claim that petite singers have petite voices.  She performed a set of songs by Reynaldo Hahn and Camille Saint-Saëns in fine French, employing dramatic word coloring and emphasizing the dark richness of her voice.  In "Dis-moi que je suis belle" from Massenet's Thaïs she conveyed the character's insecurity with total conviction.  We loved Rimsky-Korsakov's "Dreams of a Summer Night" in which a young maiden dreams of a romantic awakening.

Mr. Polenzani mastered all the subtleties of "Wie singt die Lerche schön" in a lovely set of songs by Liszt; our favorite in this set was the gorgeous "Die stille Wasserose" in which the silence between the notes maintained the delicate mood most effectively.  In contrast, "Es rauschen die Winde" was an expression of anguish and loss.  The tenor's secure technique allowed him to immerse himself in the text.  Later in "Pourquoi me réveiller" from Massenet's Werther we felt the hero's heart breaking in passionate lament.  An exquisite diminuendo heightened the effect.  In this French-heavy recital we were delighted that Ravel's Cinq mélodies populaires grecques were included.  Mr. P. showed his humorous side in "Quel gallant m'est comparable" and the audience loved it.  They also appreciated his charming informality, waving to his children in the audience.

We literally could not wait to hear the two artists in a duet and were amply rewarded by the entire St. Sulpice scene from Act III of Massenet's Manon.  Manon, that manipulative bad girl, enters the church where Des Grieux is about to take orders and seduces him away from his religious calling.  Although the voices were perfectly matched, poor Des Grieux is no match for Manon's wiles.  The scene was so well done that sets and costumes appeared in our mind's eye.  Well, not the sets and costumes of the current unloved incarnation at the Met but from an earlier production that we loved and lost.

Another duet was performed as an encore--the one from Bernstein's Candide in which Candide and Cunégonde sing their very conflicting views of what their marital bliss would be.  It was lighthearted and amusing and sent the audience out on a (ahem) high note.  Throughout the recital Ken Noda supported the singers with the kind of attention that we must never take for granted.  We particularly enjoyed the way he conveyed the tinkling of the fountain in the opening chanson "Les fontaines" and the many colors in Rachmaninoff's "Dreams".

We want to urge everyone who loves vocal music to get on board for this tantalizing series of recitals in which the George London Foundation pairs an artist who is a recent prize winner with an artist who was awarded a prize in the recent past.  May they continue forever to award prizes to such deserving artists!

ⓒ meche kroop

MSM GOES GALLIC

The Manhattan School of Music presented an outstanding production of Massenet's Thaïs this past weekend.  Artistic Director of the MSM Opera Theater Dona D. Vaughn ensured success by lining up a superb production team that honored the work as to time and place and gave it a focus that would appeal to a modern audience.

Everyone loves a bad girl and no one loves a hypocritical religious extremist.  Louis Gallet's libretto, based on a poem and novel by Anatole France, traces two opposing spiritual trajectories.  Thaïs, the bad girl, actress and courtesan, becomes a saint and Athanaël, the cenobite monk who converts her to Christianity, becomes overwhelmed by his lust.

The action takes place in Egypt in the 4th c. and Massenet's music skillfully evokes the exoticism through the use of extravagant orchestral color which was well brought out by George Manahan's conducting of the fine student orchestra.  The production team deserves a great deal of credit for creating the visual counterpart.  The simple set was created by André Barbe for Opéra Montréal and comprised nothing more than a disc on the floor, a vertical eye-shaped element, several columns dropped in from above when needed to create a palace and a pedestal which elevated at plot junctures to indicate the heroine's spiritual elevation.  Guy Simard's lighting design went a long way toward creating and changing the atmosphere.  Everywhere was seen the "Eye of Horus" a symbol of major importance to the Egyptians.

Mr. Barbe's wildly colorful costumes further emphasized the exoticism and were uniformly flattering to the singers.  The communities of monks and nuns wore drab dun colored garb and the "party people" (YOU know, the ones having FUN) looked sexy as all get-out.  The appropriate headdresses and wigs by Amy Wright added to the effect.  Director Renaud Doucet blocked the scenes effectively.

The night we attended, the eponymous heroine was sung by soprano Rebecca Krynski who looked and sounded marvelous, using her beautiful instrument to good advantage with some lovely phrasing and fine French style.  A high point was her consideration of the future loss of her beauty and her fear of death.  Just following this was the exquisite "Meditation", a theme which was to recur several more times.

Tenor Aaron Short made a swell Nicias, an old school friend of the monk who had put himself in debt to finance a week of carnal pleasure with our heroine.  Absolutely delightful were the antics of Crobyle, sung by soprano Allison Nicholas, and Myrtale, sung by mezzo Elsa Quéron as they mocked the dour monk and changed his drab clothing for something more suited to the palace.  Their voices blended charmingly.

Albine, leader of the religious order to which our heroine is consigned, was well sung by mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis; Palémon, leader of the monks who advises our hero to stay away from worldly people was sung by Brett Vogel.  Athanaël was difficult to like at first, being such a disagreeable fanatic with a rather dry voice, but he garnered our sympathy as his suffering increased in Act II.

We continued to explore the Gallic side of MSM the following evening by attending a most compelling recital coordinated by the esteemed Catherine Malfitano which was entitled "Pleurs d'or" and involved 20 third-year vocal students.  The first half of the program comprised chansons from the late 19th and early 20th c.--beautiful miniatures by Debussy, Hahn, Duparc, Chausson, Ravel, Fauré, Delibes, Bizet and Massenet.  Ms. Malfitano structured the recital to be more than a recital with the singers in mostly formal black attire and wearing masks suggestive of carnevale or Mardi Gras.  They sat in chairs facing upstage and each singer stood up for his or her turn and interacted with other singers, lending visual and dramatic interest.

The second half comprised arias from operas by Meyerbeer, Massenet, Bizet, Gounod, Lalo, Thomas, Ravel and others.  For this part, masks were removed and the singers sat on either side of the stage, rising only for their own performance.  Although it is way too early in their respective careers to say much definitive or predictive about the voices, we will say that every singer connected with his/her material and with the audience.  The emotionalism made for an involving evening.  We do confess to being somewhat blown away by mezzo Hannah Dishman who sang Bizet's "Chanson d'Avril" and "Nobles seigneurs, salut!" from Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots; by soprano Amanda Grafton who sang Chausson's "Le temps des lilas" and "Voyons, Manon" from Massenet's Manon;  and by Michael Anderson whose sweet tenor illuminated Hahn's "Le rossignol des lilas" and "Vainement, ma bien-aimée" from Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys.  French diction was mostly good all around.  Vive la France!

(c) meche kroop