DOWN IN THE VALLEY

Alexandra Haines, John Kaneklides, Terina Westmeyer, Eric Barsness

The Delaware Valley Opera has been providing live opera performances for residents of the Upper Delaware River Valley and Western Catskills for a quarter of a century, fostering both local talent and the emerging young singers to whom we are so very devoted.  Their summer residence is in Narrowsburg, NY and if we were given to driving we would surely have made the trip.  With our non-driver status, we were relegated to attending their benefit last night, right here in NYC.

Several performances knocked our proverbial socks right off our feet.  We have written before about tenor John Kaneklides about whom, if you haven't heard already, you will very soon.  If you recall the early performances of Rolando Villazon you will know exactly the delights of which I am speaking.  His ringy-pingy tenor, backed by some fine technique and intense involvement with the text, made Edgardo's desperate aria from Lucia de Lammermoor ("Fra poco a me recovero") feel like a stab in the heart. 

New to us but impressive were two very different sopranos.  Terina Westmeyer is one of those big beautiful girls with big beautiful voices, seemingly on the path to roles as a Verdi soprano.  One doesn't often hear arias from Verdi's Attila sung during recitals; her "Santo di Patria" was delivered with a penetrating and powerful sound that set the concert hall vibrating.  Admirable was her flexibility in the fioritura and her dramatic commitment that held the stage.

Alexandra Haines has a very different light lyric soprano that has a youthful brightness just perfect for Susana's final aria in Nozze di Figaro.  We liked the fine resonance and her expressive manner.  There was a lovely change of color toward the end when Mozart shifts to the minor key for just one phrase before ending in a glorious burst of major key exuberance.  Our only cavil regards the use of the music stand.  We hope that the next time we hear her she will have memorized the material and won't have the need for that "security blanket".

We do not have the same enthusiasm for bass Eric Barsness.  He certainly has the low notes but his unattractive voice sounded reedy in the upper register.  More serious is his lack of expressiveness.  We had a hard time staying interested and found our ears reaching out to the expressive piano of Christopher Berg.  The lack of color in his voice was relieved only occasionally and, similarly, the lack of movement vocabulary.  We found this astonishing since Mr. Barsness has a background in dance and choreography.  We generally admire people with the courage to branch out in a new direction but wish that he had brought some terpsichorean influence into his career change.

Part of the problem was his choice of material.  Although we have enjoyed other bass' performance of Sarastro's arias, we have never related to Brahms' "Vier ernste Gesange" with their rather stuffy texts from the bible.  We did hear some variety of color in "O Tod, wie bitter bist du".  The Charles Ives songs, usually so colorful, left us cold.  We missed the childlike excitement of "Circus Band".  In "Tom Sails Away" we missed the narrative engagement we usually experience.

And now…for the big surprise!  Readers may have realized that we have little affection for contemporary compositions but we heard an unusual work that we absolutely loved--loved for the clever text by Mary Griffin and for the apposite music composed by Joe Hannan.  There was a perfect marriage of text and music and a real ability by Mr. Mr. Hannan to write for the voice.  And there was HUMOR!

The work is called Christina the Astonishing and, since we only heard about half of it, we are left with a craving to experience the work in toto.  It is a retelling of the 13th c. biography of Christina, hilariously dubbed the Patron Saint of Psychiatrists by Pope John XXIII in 1950.  Thomas de Cantimpré's biography, written shortly after her demise, describes a shepherdess who died in 1224 and returned to life at her own requiem mass during the Agnus Dei.  She purportedly was sent back to earth to bear terrible sufferings on behalf of the tormented souls she had seen in hell.  Right!

In Ms. Griffin's libretto, Christina (Ms. Westmeyer) appears as a bag lady in NYC in our own times, scorned on the streets and subways.  Even her biographer (sung by Mr. Kaneklides) suspects that her sanctity is insanity.  Ms. Haines with her angelic soprano was just right as An Angel and Mr. Barsness took the role of god.

The work opened with the quartet sounding like church bells in perfect harmony with overlapping voices contributing more delights. Mr. Berg's marvelous piano was augmented by James Byars on the English Horn.  We consider this performance a musical triumph.

As encore, Mr. Barsness sang one of Mr. Berg's own compositions, a setting of Frank O'Hara's lightly humorous poem "Lana Turner Has Collapsed".  He seemed to come to life at this point.  Perhaps irony is his strong suit.

© meche kroop

CHABRIER ET SES AMIS

Vira Slywotzky and Jesse Blumberg

Is one allowed to have fun at a recital?  We certainly hope so. So many of them are serious affairs; we emerge feeling deeply moved (or not) but it isn't often that we leave grinning from ear to ear.  Before last night, Emmanuel Chabrier was just a blip on our radar screen but today we see him in an entirely new light, thanks to The Mirror Visions Ensemble who presented the work of Chabrier and his circle; it was a lighthearted oeuvre comprising his music (setting of texts by Verlaine and several other poets), his amusing and original letters (which were set by Christopher Berg a few years ago), and also works by Poulenc, Duparc, Chausson and D'Indy.

Chabrier, like so many gifted artists of the latter half of the 19th c., worked as a civil servant but had music as his first love.  He was a man of great wit, judging by a letter he wrote to his boss confessing that his absence from work was due to a trip to Bordeaux to realize his dream of seeing Tristan und Isolde.  This letter was set by Mr. Berg who is, like Chabrier, self-taught; his music is tuneful and nothing like the contemporary music which leaves us with clenched teeth.  Mr. Berg himself played the piano and, along with Gary Chapman, played a four-hand piano piece entitled "Souvenirs de Munich" which included themes from Tristan und Isolde but with irreverent and affectionately sacriligious variations.  The two pianists also performed Chabrier's "Cortège burlesque", a toe-tapping number that pressaged the ragtime music to come in the not-too-distant future.

A trio from Monsieur Chabrier's operetta Fisch-Ton-Kan opened the program; he and librettist Paul Verlaine were barely in their 20's yet the work is totally entertaining as brought to life by soprano Vira Slywotzky, tenor Scott Murphree and baritone Jesse Blumberg who got the chance to show off his terpsichorean skills to the delight of the audience.  All three singers had total command of this material and they closed the program with Mr. Berg's beautiful setting of M. Chabrier's letter to his wife; the phrases were eminently singable and the harmonies gorgeous.

In between we heard chansons by Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, and Vincent D'Indy whose vocal line in "Madrigal" was beautifully sung by Ms. Slywotzky; the writing for piano was reflective of early music and simply stunning.  Chabrier, like many other composers, enjoyed writing about animals--in this case, turkeys, cicadas and ducklings--charming miniatures all.

But our favorite work of the evening was a duet entitled "Duo de l'ouvreuse de l'Opéra-Comique et de l'employé du Bon-Marché" for which M. Chabrier wrote both text and music.  Ms. S. and Mr. B. portrayed the two lovers, an usherette and a clerk, who were delighted when the Opéra burned down and the government provided a huge stipend so they could finally marry.  It was a perfect storm of singing, acting, music and text.  What fun!

©  meche kroop