GUANBO SU, GUANBO GIU

Kenneth Merrill and Guanbo Su

We had only heard basso Guanbo Su on one occasion--but he showed such vocal and dramatic skills performing two very different characters in the same production that we were most eager to hear him again. It was about six weeks ago that we enjoyed Janacek's The Adventures of Vixen Sharp-Ears at Manhattan School of Music; Mr. Su portrayed both the starchy Parson and the grumpy Badger whose den gets preempted by the heroine. We wondered who was the possessor of that incredibly mature sounding bass.

The basso fach is a late blooming one (and also a long-lasting one) so it is an astonishment to find one so young and so well developed. Another astonishment was to hear a program for bass that wasn't ponderous. On the contrary, Mr. Su's voice is dark and rich, but also with a lightness that makes it difficult to describe but very agreeable to listen to.  Think Italian roast espresso capped with milk foam!

There is one thing we noticed that may be a contributing factor--his embouchure probably adds some height and resonance in the head, but we are no voice teacher and that is just a speculation. We would love to ask his teacher Cynthia Hoffman.

With excellent German, Mr. Su performed Richard Strauss' "Morgen" with stunnng expressivity. We don't think we ever heard it sung by a bass but there's always a first time.  Robert Schumann's "Die beiden Grenadiere" showed off Mr. Su's gift for storytelling. The discreet use of dynamics injected variety into the lengthy lied.

Schubert songs seemed a natural for Mr. Su's storytelling.  He produced markedly different coloration for the frightened Maiden and the reassuring Death in "Der Tod und das Madchen". But it was "Erlkonig" that captured our admiration.  In this dramatic masterpiece, Mr. Su used facial expression and direction of glances along with vocal coloration to indicate the identities of the four characters. How we would have loved to share with our readers photos of his face  but, truth to tell, our attention was so rapt that we forgot to pick up the camera!  This was the first time that happened to us and says a great deal about the intensity of the performance. We may never forget the twisted snarl of the titular character.

Jacques Ibert's Chansons de Don Quichotte revealed a fine facility with French and impressive melismatic singing.  In "Chanson a Dulcinee", he floated the final note in a manner we've not observed in the basso fach.

From Gerald Finzi's 20th c. setting of Shakespearean text (Let Us Garlands Bring) we heard three selections sung in clear English. Setting English generally results in an unappealing vocal line but Shakespeare's iambic pentameter is a whole 'nother story.  The songs were quite lovely and we particularly enjoyed the jolly "It Was a Lover and His Lass".

Stefano Donaudy composed in the early 20th c. but his music harks back to the Baroque period. We have always loved his "O del mio amato ben" and Mr. Su was nicely flexible in the melismatic passages and ardent in his delivery.

The final work on the program was Giuseppi Giordani's  18th c. "Caro mio ben". This is every beginning singer's "first song" so we may have been taking it for granted.  No longer!  Mr. Su gave it a beautiful pianissimo in the ritornello with some interesting embellishments.

Renowned coach and collaborative pianist Kenneth Merrill utilized both his talents last night and added a great deal to this exemplary recital.  The vociferous audience demanded an encore and we heard a passionate delivery of a song in Mandarin which Mr Su said was a folk song, not an art song.  Well, we could not have discerned  the difference but wish we'd had a translation.

Mr. Su has some interesting plans for the summer including Glenn Morton's Classic Lyric Arts program in France. Having graduated from Manhattan School of Music, he will return for his Master of Music degree and we are looking forward to hearing more from him as his voice develops.

(c) meche kroop

MILES TO GO

Dan K. Kurland and Miles Mykkanen

Tenor Miles Mykkanen is mature beyond his years and versatile beyond belief. We have had the pleasure of hearing him sing and witnessing his compelling performances for several years now and are always astonished.  Yesterday he presented a recital at Juilliard as partial fulfillment of the requirements for his M.M. degree.  Importantly, it fulfilled all the requirements of audience engagement.

Our favorite parts of the program were the beginning and the end although there were delights aplenty in between. Ever since Lachlan Glen's perusal of all 600+ of Schubert's lieder output we have been more than usually excited when we see the name of this liedermeister on a program.

Mr. Mykkanen's three choices were perfect for his unique voice and style.  The lilting "Ganymed" is filled with rapture and left us with rapturous feelings. The tender "Der Vater mit dem Kind" was no less wonderful.  But it was the well-known "Erlkönig" that knocked our socks off.  The young artists at Juilliard have spoiled us for other performances with the intensity of their dramatic involvement but Mr. Mykkanen's performance was beyond.

He employed his impressive instrument with different colors for the narrator, the frightened child, the reassuring father and the deceitful Erlkönig. But he somehow managed to alter the colors from one verse to the next as the child becomes more terrified, the father in greater denial, and the Erlkönig nastier. This was the work of a true artist of the stage and Mr. Kurland's piano kept up with him every step of the way. We confess to being overwhelmed. We give credit to Goethe's poetry and Schubert's music, of course.

The following set, which Mr. Mykkanen thoughtfully introduced, comprised three selections from Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. These were written for Michelangelo's young male lover and Britten set them for his male partner, tenor Peter Pears. They were so passionately sung that one would think they were written for Mr. Mykkanen.

Having sung in such perfect German and Italian, Mr. Mykkanen moved on to French, also perfectly sung.  We heard Albert Roussel's "Sarabande", Gabriel Fauré's "Clair de lune" and Claude Debussy's "Le jet d'eau". French songs can sometimes sound a bit effete but not here!  Mr. Kurland's piano added to the magic with pictorializations of fountains and moonlight.

Mr. Mykkanen is one of the few singers whose English diction is likewise perfect. "Ain't it a pretty night" from Carlisle Floyd's Susannah was an unusual choice but made perfect sense as the longing Mr. Mykkanen experienced to move to New York City.

It was the closing set of Sondheim songs that best illustrated Mr. Mykkanen's versatility and the influence of Steven Blier and the New York Festival of Song. When sung without amplification, we accept Mr. Sondheim as composer of 20th c. operas and his songs can stand next to those of the old masters of the 19th c. (Mr. Sondheim may see things differently).

We were treated to a few songs from Sunday in the Park with George--"Putting it Together" was a bit revised to indicate that the art of which Mr. Mykkanen sang was the art of making music, not painting. No harm was done!  "Finishing the Hat" and "Move On" were equally excellent.

We particularly enjoyed songs from Company--"The Little Things You Do Together" and Mr. Mykkanen's encore "Being Alive".

But there were two songs about children that captured our heart--"The Glamorous Life" from A Little Night Music in which Mr. Mykkanen was able to illustrate both the pride a child has in a famous mother and also the loneliness.  And then the cautionary "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods.

Mr. Mykkanen, as versatile as he is, can look forward to a major career whether he chooses opera, recital or Broadway.  Everything he sings is golden and he knows how to get a song across.  Once you hear him he is unforgettable!

(c) meche kroop

MASTER OF MUSIC

Tomoko Nakayama an Zhiguang Hong

An enthusiastic crowd welcomed bass-baritone Zhiguang Hong to the stage of the Bruno Walter Auditorium which was packed to overflowing.  At the end of the recital, Mr. Hong was gifted with no less than five huge bouquets of flowers.  What a superb way to celebrate Mr. Hong's achievement of a Master's of Music Degree from Mannes College of Music.

What impresses most about Mr. Hong is his confident stage presence and his heroic style.  He commanded the stage completely in R. Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel which he sang with authority.  We noticed right away his strength in the lower register.  His collaborative pianist, Tomoko Nakayama, accompanied his "Let Beauty Awake" with some lovely arpeggios.

He was even more commanding in "See the raging flames arise" from Handel's Joshua with its challenging fioritura; his strong full instrument was used to good advantage.  Again, Ms. Nakayama played beautifully in the piano prelude.  Mr. Hong's English diction was beautifully clear.

Three songs from Verdi's Sei Romanze followed, "More, elisa, lo stanco poeta", "In solitaria stanza" and "Deh, pietoso, o Addolorata".  Although his voice sounded fine, we wanted a bit more Italianate style.

In the second half of the program, we heard three songs by Henri Duparc.  We were delighted to hear a more gentle aspect to his voice in "Phidylé" but when he sang  "Le Manoir de rosemonde", we realized that his strengths lie in the more heroic oeuvre.  In "La vague et la cloche" we loved the storm created by Ms. Nakayama on the piano.

Most impressive were the four songs by Schubert which ended the program.  In "Wasserflut" from Winterreise Mr. Hong showed more variety and depth of feeling than in the prior songs.  We found it quite moving and hoped that this promising young artist will continue to work on adding more variety to the other songs in his repertory--variety of dynamics and color.

The final song,"Erlkönig", astonished us because EVERYTHING was there.  His ability to loosen up and tell the story while acting the parts of the narrator, the reassuring father, the frightened child and the eerily seductive Erlkönig made the performance chilling and gripping in its intensity. Each character's voice was colored differently. He also used his body effectively.  

This made us think that Mr. Hong's future lies on the opera stage.  Indeed, he has a number of important opera engagements coming up.  In any case, we would be happy to learn that he is working on his French and German diction which did not quite live up to the standards set by his excellent English.

The audience demanded encores and encores we got!  As one might expect, Mr. Hong was far more relaxed in his native tongue and the two Mandarin folk songs we heard delighted us no end.  Wild applause brought on one final encore "This Nearly Was Mine" from Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific.

© meche kroop

THE HALF-FULL GLASS

A cheerful disposition requires being grateful for what one experiences and not mourning for what is missed.  Let it be said also that, at times, a taste of something is so wonderful that one is completely satisfied.  Such was the case Friday when I was fortunate enough to hear half of the final  Lindemann recital of the season.

Looking every inch the diva but sounding like the artist she is, glamorous soprano Lei Xu inhabited each chanson of Berlioz' Les Nuits d'Ete with such dramatic intensity that it seemed to be an operatic aria.  In "Le spectre de la rose", one could virtually inhale the aroma.  Several of the songs relate to loss and one could feel the heart deeply touched.  Ms. Xu's voice has a beautiful bloom on top.  Her piano partner Bryan Wagorn seemed to breathe with her and supported totally without ever overwhelming.

Baritone Luthando Qave sang three Schubert lieder accompanied by Alexandra Naumenko.  The fast tempo taken in "Die Forelle" made the song seem less serious.  The audience favorite was "Erlkönig" in which Mr. Qave's dramatic skills were given free rein.  Never have we heard such an evil seductive Erlkonig!  The voice of The Father sounded appropriately reassuring with some underlying anxiety.  However, one might have wished for a lighter more frightened sounding child.  Ms. Naumenko has a firm hand on the piano and there were moments when a lighter touch would have added some variety.

Her firm hand stood her in good stead as tenor Mario Chang sang Verdi's "L'esule" with a gorgeous Italianate sound.  This is a sizable voice, one that is quite suited to the Verdi repertoire and we were sorry to miss his Tosti songs and the Spanish songs with which he ended the program.

But we were committed to hearing pianist Soheil Nasseri perform his traditional program at Bargemusic in Brooklyn.  What a pleasure to hear our favorite composers played with verve and style.  We were most taken by Schubert's Sonata in A minor, D.845, Op.42; given our love for lieder, this is quite understandable since Schubert's melodies are always so engaging.  And especially since Mr. Nasser's piano "sings" so beautifully with lyrical phrasing and variety of color. 

Mr. Nasseri continued with Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet: Ten Pieces for Piano, Op.75, a piano reduction written some time after the orchestral version.  It seemed amazing how many subtleties of instrumentation the piano was able to reproduce.  Scenes from the ballet kept drifting in front of our eyes.

The program ended with Beethoven's Sonata No. 18 in E-flat Major.  We were particularly enchanted by the lyrical Menuetto and the playful Presto con fuoco.

It seemed bizarre to be thinking about Montsalvatge's "Cuba dentro de un piano" until I realized I was hearing an entire universe in Mr. Nasseri's piano.  This ambitious artist has promised to perform all of Beethoven's works involving piano by 2020, the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth.  Although Mr. Nasseri performs all over the world we hope to be present for more of them.

(c) meche kroop