ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

Joel Harder, Dominic Armstrong, Kate Maroney, Lucy Fitz Gibbon,  Caitlin Mead,
and Allison Gish

The very idea of basing an operatic work on a newspaper series! Those of us who love Leoš Janáček's Vixen Sharp-Ears (also known as The Cunning Little Vixen) do not find that strange at all. How many of us knew, before last night, that the composer set another newspaper series--this one of a diary in the form of poems?

Had we not ventured to The Brooklyn Historical Society last night for another one of Brooklyn Art Song Society's adventuresome program, we might have spent the rest of our life thinking that "The Diary of One Who Disappeared" had something to do with evil politics.

But no! It's a highly romantic and bittersweet tale of a young farmer who is lured into a sexual relationship with a seductive Gypsy woman named Zeffka. At first he feels guilty and expects the worst from her family, about whom he has absorbed the prejudicial feelings of his community. He worries about his parents as well but her allure overcomes his guilt and prejudice. When she becomes pregnant he bids farewell to his home, his family, and his former life.  Who knows what will happen to them?

The musical form chosen by the composer was that of a song cycle, but it is one that borders on a one act opera since a few lines are given to Zeffka, a role realized as a mezzo-soprano, with the role of the nameless youth being sung by a tenor.

We were so glad that Artistic Director and Founder of B.A.S.S. Michael Brofman treated us with this novel work and cast it so well. We have never heard Dominic Armstrong sing with such passionate involvement; furthermore, the tessitura of the piece fit his voice like a glove to a hand. He created a great deal of dramatic interest by employing dynamic variety. Singing Zeffka's lines was mezzo-soprano Kate Maroney whose acting and voice were also superb. Although the text does not give much opportunity for staging, the two performers made the most of what was there. Duets were especially lovely.

Adding a fresh dimension was a trio of female voices comprising sopranos Lucy Fitz Gibbon and Caitlin Mead and mezzo-soprano Allison Gish. They sang from the rear of the theater in heavenly harmony and we could only regret that the composer did not give them more to sing.

Collaborative pianist Joel Harder was consistently supportive of the vocal line, never overwhelming the singers. He was particularly effective creating the twittering of the swallows and the delight experienced by the youth in watching his pregnant beloved. There was an exceptional piano solo in which the piano evoked images of the couple making love--or so we imagined!

Just as we were impressed by Mr. Armstrong learning the lengthy cycle in Czech, a notoriously difficult language, so were we impressed by soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon performing Dorfszenen Sz. 78 in Slovak. It was written by Béla Bartók, a major figure of the early 20th c., arriving on the musical scene a generation or two after Janáček.

We cannot say that we actually heard the folk melodies so assiduously collected by Bartók and his colleague and contemporary Zoltán Kodály but Ms. Fitz Gibbon's performance allowed us to see images of peasant life. The pictures we saw in our mind's eye were that of lives that were tough, even when the music was exuberant. We particularly liked the wedding song, catching a glimpse of a woman who would prefer to stay single!

Along with an attractive bright soprano, Ms. Fitz Gibbon used her entire body in a captivating sincerity of expression that succeeded in bringing each song to vivid life.

From the singer we learned that the cycle has been performed in German and English but rarely in Slovak, a language that appears to be as difficult as Czech. Learning these five songs and giving them such a dramatic performance was a true labor of love, one which we appreciated doubly, inasmuch as the Kodály songs were sung "on the book" by Ms. Maroney.

As regular readers know, your reviewer loses connection when a singer keeps glancing at the score and this becomes the perfect time to pay attention to the piano.  Mr. Brofman, who played for Ms. Fitz Gibbon and Ms. Maroney, is a pianist worth paying attention to. This early 20th c. music is difficult for us to wrap our ears around with its rhythmic complexity and dissonance. Our music education apparently ended before we learned about bitonal and modal harmonies!

We can say however that Mr. Brofman himself understands it well and made sense out of it such that we appreciated the emotional tone of the pieces whether they were sprightly, tender, or ironic.

This season's theme continues on March 6th with songs by Sibelius and Grieg.

© meche kroop

HUNG(A)RY FOR CULTURE

József Balog (photo by Attila Nagy)

Tatiana Melnik and Gergely LeBlanc
(photo by Attila Nagy)

It has been several years since we visited Budapest and now Budapest has visited us--in the person of the Hungarian State Opera and the Hungarian National Ballet! We would have liked to conduct an exit poll of the audience members leaving the New York State Theater.  How many were Hungarian expats?  How many came, like we did, to once again experience the outstanding contributions to the arts made by this European nation? And how many have never been to Hungary but are now tempted to visit?

The artistic programs we saw and heard were of the highest caliber. For culture vultures who love all the arts, perhaps the best experience would have been the Gala Concert which gave us a taste of everything. The evening was directed by András Almási-Tóth with conductors Gergely Kesselyák and Balázs Kocsár leading the world-class Hungarian State Opera Orchestra and Gábor Csiki as chorus director.  The program opened with "Himnusz", the national anthem of Hungary, Ferenc Erkel's setting of Ferenc Kölcsey's text, in the form of a prayer.

Erkel can be considered a national treasure and Hungary's greatest opera composer, especially famous for his patriotic operas of the nationalist movement of the 19th c.,  excerpts of which were performed along with excerpts of Bánk Bán which was seen in its entirety earlier in the week.

The lively drinking song was performed by Zoltán Kelemen and Bánk's tribute to his homeland was sung by Boldizsár László. We never imagined that such a difficult language with so many consonants would sound so beautiful! Erkel ensured that the vocal line and text were very much in sync.

We enjoyed Hans Van Manen's "Trois Gnossiennes", set to music by Erik Satie, with the exception of the flexed foot, so common in modern ballet.  For us, it ruins the gorgeous line of the long leg! András Lukács used some Philip Glass music for his  energetic "Whirling" and indeed the dances whirled around the stage with very high energy. This was an audience favorite.

Adolphe Adam's music dictates a much different kind of dancing and we loved the pas de trois from Le Corsaire depicted above, which was choreographed by Anna-Marie Holmes after Petipas. The part of the slave Ali is a stylish and bravura one and was excellently danced.

We wanted to make sure to include a photograph of the scene stealing space age piano played by József Balog. Mr. Balog is a brilliant pianist and played Franz Liszt's Hungarian Fantasy with brilliance. We have seen this piano before but never knew it was designed by a Hungarian.

Whilst he played what seemed to be a piano arrangement of Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets, there was an "acrobat" performing on silken ropes; we would prefer to call her a dancer/aerialist because of her unusual grace. She wrapped and unwrapped her limbs; she wound and unwound her body; she came crashing down toward the floor in moves that made the audience gasp.

The remainder of this generous program included charming selections from folk operas by Zoltán Kodaly and we were particularly delighted to hear more from mezzo-soprano Erika Gal who made such a captivating Queen of Sheba in Karl Goldmark's opera Die Königin von Saba two nights earlier.

The opera was sung in German and had the familiar plot of a man torn between a good girl and a bad girl. Think Don Jose caught between Micaëla and Carmen!  Think Tannhaüser caught between Elisabeth and Venus! Of course, the "bad girl" gets the best music and things always end tragically.

We liked Csaba Káel's direction and Éva Szendrényi's sets, particularly the starry background during the overture, which opened with a lovely erotic ballet. Tenor Boldizsár László handled the part of the mesmerized Assad with lovely tenor tone and soprano Eszter Sümegi made a good case for the abandoned bride Sulamith.

Bass Zoltán Kelemen sang the role of King Solomon with depth of tone and authority. But it was Ms. Gál whose performance impressed us the most both dramatically and vocally.  We do so love bad girls!

What we did not like were the costumes. They were downright ugly and the women of the chorus were dressed in a manner that suggested no particular period, definitely not the biblical look called for by the setting of the story set in King Solomon's temple. And what was meant by those huge clunky shoes? Poor Ms. Gál was given a Las Vegas look! EWWW!!!

Another quibble we had was with the choreography. We couldn't believe that the same choreographer (Marianna Venekei) who created the lovely opening duet could have choreographed the tasteless and meaningless ballet in the second act in which the dancers wore pastel dresses with identical short blond wigs and the male dancer was costumed like a dragonfly or something of that nature.

We were not going to let the costumes and dancing spoil such an otherwise wonderful opportunity to hear this rarely performed opera.

There were no such quibbles with the performance of Erkel's Bánk Bán which was superlative in every way. Directed by Attila Vidnyánszky, this story of the 13th c. is dear to the hearts of Hungarians. The conflicted nationalist hero was movingly sung by baritone Levente Molnár.

Before we run out of space we want to report on the excellence of the Hungarian National Ballet whose full length production of Don Quixote we saw last night. The choreography had originally been that of Petipa but, like many operas, has been successively modified by a string of choreographers. Until last night we had only seen the iteration by Baryshnikov for American Ballet Theater.  This version was finalized by Michael Messerer based upon the Bolshoi version.

Ludwig Minkus' music was somewhat rearranged, as were some of the set pieces. It worked well dramatically and there was no shortage of virtuoso dancing, leading the audience to erupt often in spontaneous applause. 

We were very impressed with the Kitri of Tatiana Melnik, especially charming in the castanet solo. In spite of all the dazzling virtuosity, there was a moment when she took a particularly slow developée and we held our breath. 

All the dancers had impressively grand extensions and that admirable Russian épaulement. As the barber Basil, Igor Tsvirko courted Kitri with huge leaps, admirable athleticism, and enviable musicality. Iurii Kekalo made an elegant Espada and Sofia Ivanova-Skoblikova charmed the audience with her style.

For comic relief we had Attila Szakács as Don Quixote who rode in on a horse, and Maksym Kovtun as his sidekick Sancho Panza who rode in on a donkey. We loved the scene in which Panza gets tossed around on a blanket by the villagers and Don Quixote has to rescue him.

Alekszandr Komarov made a funny foppish Gamache and Kitri's two friends were well danced by Lili Felméry and Rita Hangya. There was no credit in the program for the adorable petite dancer who had the part of Cupid in Don Quixote's dream.

We hope that this artistically successful visit will be repeated next year. We will welcome the Hungarians and their artistry with open arms, especially if they program Swan Lake which we sadly missed due to scheduling changes.

(c) meche kroop

MAGYAR MELODY

Gergely Bogányi, Réka Kristóf, and Äneas Humm

It has been a full five years since we heard Hungarian song. It was a Juilliard Vocal Honors Recital and soprano Lilla Heinrich-Szasz sang a Hungarian encore. We have wanted to hear more Hungarian vocal music for five years and Wednesday night our wishes were granted.

In 2015, the Armel Opera Festival partnered with Virtuosos, a televised Hungarian talent show, providing mentoring and performance opportunities for winners to make their debut in international concert halls.

New Yorkers were the fortunate beneficiaries of this program which introduced us to the splendid soprano Réka Kristóf. We have a sense that Virtuosos bears no resemblance to America's Got Talent but since we've never seen either television show we cannot say. What we can say is that Ms. Kristóf's talent is undeniable and that her program was compelling.

She has a sizable instrument and a lot of stage presence. Clearly her training has made the most of her gifts and we found ourself admiring her powerful sound, the ping-y top, the rich vibrato, the exquisite dynamic control, and her versatility.

The recital opened and closed with exhibitions of madness. In "D'Oreste, d'Ajace ho in seno i tormenti", from Mozart's Idomeneo, Elektra lets loose her wish for revenge. And in Richard Strauss' "Der Frühlingsfeier", a group of female pagans are expressing some fanatical lust for Adonis. There was no doubt about Ms. Kristóf's passionate delivery with its notes of wildness.

In a show of versatility she gave us a frightened Micaëla, reassuring herself of her fearlessness as she searches for her Don Jose in the mountain pass outside of Seville. The two sides of her nature were clearly limned.

Yet another manifestation of versatility occurred when she sang Rosalinde's aria "Klänge der Heimat" from Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. Here, Rosalinde is laying on the Hungarian Countess act with a trowel, pranking her gullible husband. 

But Strauss' opera is in German and we wanted to hear some Hungarian music.  And we did! We heard an aria from Bedrich Smetana's The Bartered Bride and several songs by Zoltán Kodály, including a melodic song of longing and a humorous song in which Ms. Kristóf and her excellent accompanist Gergely Bogányi both imitated the sound of a cricket. There was also a song by Béla Bartók.

It was a new sensation for us, listening to songs in a language of which we knew not a single word. There were no titles and no translations in the program but the dramatic skills of the artists got the meaning across. We might add that as strange as the words look on the page, they sound beautiful when sung. We attribute this to the singer's artistry but also the ability of the composers to wed text to music.

The second singer on the program was Swiss baritone Äneas Humm, about whom we have written a great deal. We are mostly familiar with his lieder performances so it was a special treat to hear him sing "Sorge infausta una procella" from Händel's Orlando. Along with a lovely legato, we observed a lot of flexibility in the fioritura.

In contrast with this tempestuous outpouring, there was the sweetness of Richard Strauss' "Breit über mein Haupt". But our admiration was brought to its peak by a series of duets by Robert Schumann, with the voices of the two singers blending beautifully. 

When you put a soprano in a room with a baritone you just know you are going to hear "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni. Mr. Humm made a very confident seducer without a shred of malice and Ms. Kristóf made an all-too-willing Zerlina. We love the way different singers give different interpretations of the characters!

Attention must be drawn to the virtuoso pianism of Mr. Bogányi. Performing on a custom designed space age piano that looked as if it would be taking off for another planet, he dazzled the audience with Franz Liszt's arrangement of the melodies from Don Giovanni. There were rapid-fire ascending and descending scales, trills and turns of every variety. Now we understand why Liszt was called "the rock star of his age". Surely Mr. Bogányi was channeling Liszt!

(c) meche kroop

JOY QUADRUPLED

Lachlan Glen, Dimitri Dover, Steven Eddy, and Lilla Heinrich Szász

Joy of Singing was born in 1958 as an award program to foster the performance of art songs with special attention paid to interpretation and communication.  It was begun by Winifred Cecil, a noted singer and teacher. The program continues and is flourishing under the musical direction of Paul Sperry . Every year the winner of the competition is given a recital. This year, the quality of the competitors was so high that the judges were obliged to share the prize.

Thus it was that we had the opportunity last night at Merkin Concert Hall to hear two gifted singers and two exemplary collaborative pianists perform a program of art songs in several languages and a variety of styles.

Soprano Lilla Heinrich Szász has impressed us since her days at Juilliard, eventually winning their 2013 Honor's Recital among many other honors, all richly deserved. She has a lively winning onstage personality and a glorious ringing instrument that she easily bends to her will.

Her collaborative pianist, Australian Lachlan Glen, is also well known to us for several years, having won us over by his producing all of Franz Schubert's songs over the period of a year--a delicious extravagance never to be forgotten.  If there is a better interpreter of Schubert alive today we would be surprised. Besides this, he has incredible sensitivity to the singer. We noticed him actually breathing with Ms. Szász in rhythm.

Naturally, Schubert songs were selected to open the program and we were glad for it. "Vedi quanto adoro ancora ingrato!" is a bit unusual for Schubert; it is sung in Italian, the setting of a text by Pietro Metastasio. It was the perfect vehicle to show off both passion and delicacy in both artists.

We also heard the sorrowful "Die Liebe hat gelogen", the gentle "Der Jüngling an der Quelle" in which Mr. Glen's piano became rather spry, and the intense "Die junge Nonne", the most familiar of the set. The two artists drew us in totally with Ms. Szász seemingly losing herself in the throes of religious ecstasy and Mr. Glen creating quite a storm in the piano.

From a century later came four folk songs set by Zoltán Kodály which Ms. Szász, whose roots are Transylvanian, sang in Hungarian.  Fortunately she translated them herself for the program. We heard cries of despair and poverty, not the cheerful folk songs of Brahms. Our favorite was the final song which bore a mournful melody. The final note hung suspended in mid air.

The final set comprised songs by Benjamin Britten, the first of which was a setting of a W.H. Auden poem "Fish in the Unruffled Lakes" which did not make much sense to us. We greatly preferred "The Salley Gardens" to a text by W. B. Yeats.  The final song "Calypso" from Cabaret Songs had an urgent rhythm, with Mr. Glen creating the sound of a railroad train in his piano.

The second half of the program was given over to the other prize winner--baritone Steven Eddy and collaborative pianist Dimitri Dover. The two seemed to enjoy a special partnership, opening with one of our favorite Brahms songs "Meine Liebe ist grün". Another Brahms song "Botschaft" was performed later and we would have preferred hearing them in the same set. They are both so melodic and romantic.

Instead, there were two songs by Clara Schumann interposed. The first, "O weh des Scheidens, das er tat" was a sad one and seemed unresolved at the end.  The second "Liebst du um Schönheit" was quite lovely but suffered a bit by comparison to the Richard Strauss setting with which all lied lovers are far more familiar. (We couldn't help thinking of the Löwe setting of Frauen Lieben und Leben which one rarely hears because of Schumann's arguably better setting.)

Mr. Eddy excelled in his interpretation of Barber's Mélodies passagères. We enjoyed Barber's music so much better in French and we think that Rilke's poetry inspired him to new heights. Mr. Eddy's French served the music well and the fact that he translated them himself likely increased his involvement.  Particularly suited to his voice was "Le clocher chante" and Mr. Dover's piano made sure we heard the carillon. We also liked "Départ" a great deal.

Mr. Eddy explained the Jake Heggie songs which followed.  They were written for baritone Nathan Gunn and were inspired by paintings in the Dallas Art Museum. We found the concept more interesting than the music. Mr. Eddy's English diction is better than most but we still missed a lot of the words and there was no text provided to read. Our English-speaking companion was of the same opinion.

Fortunately the remainder of Mr. Eddy's program was thrilling. We love Dvorák's Gypsy Songs and have mainly heard them in German. Mr. Eddy, to our delight, sang them in Czech. We do not understand the language but loved the way the melody and the rhythm of the words lined up It was a spirited song about a folk dance and we were ready to get up and dance!

Similarly, we loved Respighi's "Invito alla danza", a more sedate and romantic song and perhaps our favorite song by this early 20th c. composer. Following along with the dance theme was Camille Saint-Saëns' "Danse macabre" and that's one dance we'd like to pass up!

If all we had heard were the encore we would have considered it a successful evening. That's just how wonderful it was!  From a rare Donizetti opera entitled Il Campanello di Notte, we heard the Brindisi "Mesci, mesci". Mr. Glen joined Mr. Dover for a four-handed accompaniment while Ms. Szász and Mr. Eddy performed with gusto and glee. We considered ourselves well prepared for the champagne reception upstairs!

(c) meche kroop