SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE MORGAN LIBRARY

Ryan Speedo Green and Latonia Moore

Our readers are probably already familiar with the top notch recital series at the Morgan Library sponsored by the George London Foundation. The Foundation runs a highly regarded competition that provides generous awards to young singers and is at the top of our list of worthwhile organizations supporting the very people we write about.

If you have not subscribed to this series of concerts or attended the annual competition, now is the time to do so. The competition features young artists and the recitals feature former winners who have already established major careers.

Yesterday's concert featured soprano Latonia Moore and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, both stars at The Metropolitan Opera and also worldwide. As a young rising star at the Lindemann Program, we wrote about Mr. Green a number of times. Possibly our first exposure to his artistry was in 2012 when he won our attention with "La calunnia" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. We heard a great deal of him in the next few years as he won awards from the Marcello Giordani Foundation, Opera Index, The Richard Tucker Foundation, and of course the George London Foundation. One might say he took the opera world by storm.

Strictly because of our taste, we have always preferred his comic performances, like Osmin's aria from Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Among our favorites was his grand performance as Don Pasquale. On a more serious note, we remember a stirring performance of Banco's aria "Come dal ciel precipita".

Yesterday was a gloomy rainy day and we had hoped for something more lighthearted than the dark philosophical songs on the program. Liszt's "Die Vätergruft" surely showed off the breadth and depth of his timbre as well as his keen dramatic instincts, as did Wolf's Michelangelo Lieder--both of which we have heard him sing before. Every word was appropriately colored; every gesture was motivated from within. 

Not that it is cheerful, but there was something about Mahler's "Urlicht" that touched us to a greater extent, especially when he shared with us why he was dedicating it to the memory of Jesse Norman. We are surely a fan of Mahler and had never heard Mr. Green perform any of Mahler's songs; this one seemed to us a perfect fit for his voice. The always wonderful collaborative pianist Ken Noda made much of the mysterious theme of the interlude after the first verse, a move which lightened the mood considerably.

We were held enraptured by his performance of Ferrando's aria in Verdi's Il Trovatore, as he told the backstory that always leaves the audience confused. The staccato section was particularly chilling. Mr. Green definitely knows how to tell a tale!

What we enjoyed most perhaps was the scene from Carlisle Floyd's Susannah in which the lustful Reverend Blitch tries to get the innocent young Susannah to confess her "sin" and pray. When she stands up for herself he rapes her (offstage, although there was a chilling scream) and then, having learned of her virginity, Blitch expresses shame and remorse. It wasn't Floyd's music which got to us; it was the intense and persuasive dramatic interaction between Mr. Green and soprano Latonia Moore.

Ms. Moore's instrument is a powerful one with overtones upon overtones. We have only heard Ms. Moore once before when she won a prize from the Licia Albanese Foundation with "Un bel di" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly, a performance which left us in an altered state.

Her French songs were lovely, ranging from the exotic eroticism of Duparc's "L'invitation au voyage", supported by rippling figures in the piano, to the excitement of his "Le manoir de Rosamonde" with Mr. Noda's propulsive piano as a backdrop. A pair of songs by Roger Quilter were pleasant and her English diction made every word clear.

What excited us the most was the hopeless lament of a woman driven to madness; we are referring of course to "L'altra notte in fondo al mare" from Boito's Mefistofele, which offered Ms. Moore the opportunity to let out all the stops, both dramatically and vocally.

Furthermore, she made a persuasive case for the Countess Almaviva in "Dove sono" from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. With expressive gestures and lovely legato phrasing, she conveyed a bereft state of mind with hints of hopefulness.

Her encore piece was "The Lord's Prayer" sung a capella.

Mr. Green's encore was the rueful "This Nearly was Mine" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. This gorgeous aria confirmed our belief that the American Musical is the true inheritor of the operatic tradition. Mr. Green announced his choice by saying it wasn't opera but his performance told us otherwise.

© meche kroop

MAURICE SENDAK'S DESIGNS FOR OPERAS

Our night at the Morgan Library

Thanks to some original programming at the Morgan Library and Museum, we have experienced another side of opera-going. Having focused so strongly at the opera on the singing and direction, we have, perhaps, given short shrift to stage design. It took just one instructive lecture and a tour of the galleries to open our eyes as well as our ears.  Yes, we heard some fine singing as well, which we will get to shortly.

Our engaging lecturer was Christopher Mattaliano, Artistic Consultant of the Portland Opera. Now a renowned director, Mr. Mattaliano was mentored in his youth by the team of Stage Director Frank Corsaro, a pioneer in bringing theater direction to the field of opera, and Artist/Illustrator Maurice Sendak; he was generous with his personal anecdotes from working with them on three operas. Their approach to Mozart's The Magic Flute, Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen, and Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges was different for each opera but always creative, always original.

All three productions were created in the 1980's; since the post-lecture performance involved the Mozart, let us focus on The Magic Flute, created for Houston Grand Opera in 1981. The team decided to allow all three themes of the opera to be brought out--the fairytale aspect, the serious Masonic theme, and the ribald vaudevillian business as well. Slides of the sketches and the sets derived therefrom illustrated the talk. Although the sets were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Mattaliano was able to meticulously reconstruct them. The production had a lot of "mileage" and was intensely popular.

The Cunning Little Vixen was given a dark emphasis with "cuteness" avoided. The strange opera The Love for Three Oranges was set at the time of the French Revolution and staged as a play within a play.

Please visit our Facebook page (Voce di Meche) to see a selection of photos.

After this informative lecture we were ready for some entertainment and were delighted to see and hear Joshua Jeremiah, whose mellow baritone is well known to us, as a very playful Papageno. Although he was not in costume his expressive delivery gave us everything we needed to know about the character. 

Soprano Lindsay Ohse made a very sweet Pamina with her affecting timbre in the sad aria "Ach!, Ich fuhl's" but was even better as Papagena, joining with Mr. Jeremiah for the well-loved duet. Their interaction was spirited, even without feathers! Kristen Kemp was the fine accompanist.

Although we prefer the opera in German, we must admit that the translation into English worked well. Rather than trying to shoehorn the English word for word into the vocal line, the translator wrote lyrics that scanned and rhymed whilst preserving the intent of the text.

The next time we go to the opera and a bunch of people come out at the curtain call after the singers and conductors, we won't have to scratch our head; we will know that they are the team responsible for the "look" of a piece. Although we generally credit them in our reviews we had no idea what went on behind the scenes--the drawings and the models, all resulting from intense artistic collaboration.

We were inspired to peruse the exhibit after the lecture to see the sources of inspiration for Sendak, often the works of Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). We recommend this exhibit if you would like to see what goes on before the opera reaches the stage.

© meche kroop