50 SHADES OF GRIEF

Manami Mizumoto, Chloe Kim, Jacob Dassa, Edward Li, Samuel Siegel, Jessica Niles, and Joshua Stauffer

We recall the first time we heard a countertenor. It was at Manhattan School of Music and the singer was Anthony Ross Costanzo, who has gone on to fame and fortune. More recently we have been dazzled by Jakob Jozef Orlinski and Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. The fach is not to everyone's taste but it is very pleasing to our ear.

Last night at Juilliard we heard Samuel Siegel in recital and the first thing we noticed about his splendid technique is that there was an evenness throughout the range, evidence of a stable core and good breath control. Last week we reviewed a well-known countertenor who sounded like two different singers at either end of the vocal register. That was not pleasing.

Although sacred music is not nearly as interesting to us as secular music, we thought Mr. Siegel brought beautiful tone and phrasing to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's 18th c. Stabat Mater. Mr. Siegel wisely chose some excellent artists to accompany him on his journey into Maria's sorrow.

Soprano Jessica Niles matched his artistry all the way and during their duets we were fascinated by the play of harmonics every time the voices essayed a discordant minor second.

Members of Juilliard 415 contributed the accompaniment with Jacob Dassa playing the beautiful harpsichord and Joshua Stauffer plucking the strings of that most impressive instrument, the theorbo. Violins were bowed by Chloe Kim and Manami Mizumoto, the viola by Edward Li, and the cello by Cullen O'Neil. John Stajduhar manned the Double Bass.

The work itself comprises a succession of verses about Mary, mother of Jesus, grieving at the cross. The poet wants to share her grief. There is not much variety in the sentiment and it is impressive how the young Pergolesi managed to inject a great deal of variety into the music. Surprisingly, a couple of the verses were written in a major key, providing some relief from the misery and suffering.

There is less decoration in the vocal line than in music of the Baroque but we did admire the execution of the few turns we heard, and the occasional florid vocal line in the melismatic passages of "Fac, ut ardeat cor meum". 

There was a fair amount of excitement in the scale passages of "Inflammatus et accensus", but for the most part the mood was one of devotion and both singers invested the performance with a deeply felt but subdued sincerity.

We wondered what the adventuresome Pergolesi might have achieved had he not perished from tuberculosis at the young age of 26. His work looks forward to the Classicism of the future.

© meche kroop

GROWING...GROWING...GROWN!

Kady Evanyshyn onstage at Paul Hall

We have been writing about Kady Evanyshyn for at least five years and witnessing her growth as an artist. What we recognized from the very beginning was her gracious stage presence, engaging personality, and finely textured mezzo-soprano instrument. It took us longer to learn to pronounce her name than it took us to perceive her star potential. Some singers just stand out right away and we are not alone in recognizing this feature.

We have heard Ms. Evanyshyn in recital, singing everything from Monteverdi to Brahms, and have seen her perform in operas, notably Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor and in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. We have heard her in many languages as well. Perhaps what stands out for us most was her performance of Moussorgsky's Nursery Songs. She applies the same sense of drama developed on the operatic stage to her performance of art songs.

Last night we attended her Master of Music recital at Juilliard (that polisher of gems!) and had the opportunity to greet and share opinions with her teacher Edith Wiens. Both of us were thrilled.

The program she chose was an interesting one, marked by variety and adventure. Three chansons by Reynaldo Hahn opened the program. Although Hahn composed in the first half of the 20th c., his songs show a great respect for the past by virtue of their melodic delights and their themes. As we understand it, Ms. Evanyshyn auditioned for Juilliard with a Hahn song and saw its inclusion last night as a means of coming full circle.

"A Chloris" is a love song without a single dark note and perfectly suited to the singer's joy in singing. "L'énamourée", on the other hand, let us share the feeling of wanting to bring a dead lover back to life. "Fêtes galantes" is filled with charm like the Fragonard painting that springs to mind when we hear it. The works were performed in fine French with long lovely lines, just as Hahn intended. Collaborative pianist Bronwyn Schuman reflected the same joy in harking back to the past.

The next set was in German and we are pleased to report that the singer's German is just as good as her French. We found nothing to pick on! For the Strauss lieder, the always wonderful Chris Reynolds provided the piano collaboration. Two of our favorites bookended the set. In "Du meines herzens Krönelein" we loved the way Ms. Evanyshyn used different vocal coloration when the poet describes his beloved and when he describes other women.

The set ended with a passionate delivery of "Zueignung" that ended in a thrilling crescendo that filled Paul Hall with overtones. In between the two we heard "Die Georgine" (from the same Op. 10) in which the poet compares the autumn dahlia to his late blooming love. Mr. Reynolds captured the lush late Romantic harmonies.

Of the three Marc Blitzstein songs, our favorite was "Stay in my Arms". The text "Let's just be lazy; the world's gone crazy!" resonated with us. The other two were settings of text by e.e. cummings which look fine on the page but resemble Dada. It was quite an accomplishment for the singer to make sense out of what psychiatrist call "word salad". We don't know why Blitzstein chose to set them but...there they are.

The second half of the program found Ms. Evanyshyn "on the book" but we can understand why. Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne are written in a language unknown to us--Occitan. On the page the words are clearly from a branch of Romance languages but as different from French as is Portuguese.

Ms. Evanyshyn clearly demonstrated the humor of "Lou boussu" in which a hunchback courts a maiden without success. In "Oï ayaï" a woman refuses to get out of bed until her husband goes to the fair on several errands to buy her various articles of clothing. The verses repeat and repeat and our singer's facial expression showed us how the husband felt. The humor of both songs was good natured and sweet. For this set, the accompaniment was played by Jonathan Stauffer on the theorbo. He played as beautifully as he did yesterday at another Juilliard concert we reviewed. The choice of theorbo was a happy but unexpected one.

The program ended with a group of folk songs set by Luciano Berio in typical mid 20th c. modernism. The stage was filled with musicians: violist Lauren Siess, cellist Philip Sheegog, flutist Emily Duncan, clarinetist Nikki Pet (doubling on piccolo), harpist Deanna Cirielli, and percussionists Benjamin Cornavaca and Simon Herron.

Our curiosity made us want to inspect the panoply of percussion instruments. We heard some mighty strange sounds! The orchestration was interesting but, truth to tell, we might have preferred hearing Ms. Evanyshyn singing a capella! The modernism of the music did not seem to carry the simplicity of the folk songs.

Actually, the first two songs "Black is the Color" and "I Wonder as I Wander" are not folk songs but were composed by John Jacob Niles. The first was introduced by some harsh dissonance on the viola. Now what does that have to do with a man admiring his beloved?

"Loosin yelav" was sung in Armenian and included the piping of the piccolo.

"Rossignolet du bois" was sung in French and featured the clarinet.

"A la femminisca" was sung in the Sicilian dialect and had the feeling of a dirge.

"La donna ideale" was sung in ancient Genoese dialect whilst "Motettu de tristura" utilized Sardinian dialect and involved some rather eerie sounds. The nightingale was represented by the piccolo.

We recognized the Occitan dialect from the previous Auvergne set in the next two songs "Malurous qu'o uno fenno" and "Lo fiolaire". Both were filled with humor.

The set closed with "Azerbajian Love Song" which permitted our lovely singer the opportunity to indulge in some lovely melismatic singing and even a trill.

This was an opportunity and an adventure. We are unlikely to hear the work again. One of the advantages of being in a music conservatory is having such a variety of artists available for such events.

We have high hopes for Ms. Evanyshyn's future. We are sure that she will successfully bridge the gap between conservatory and professional life.

(c) meche kroop

SING WHAT YOU LOVE!

Chris Reynolds and Dominik Belavy

Dominik Belavy and Joshua Stauffer

"Sing what you love" was the advice offered by a famous conductor/coach to a Juilliard student (now world-famous) during a master class. That was his only comment. And it was great advice. Perhaps some of our readers were there and know of whom we are speaking. We will keep mum on that point unless pressed to reveal.  Hint: The former was JL and the latter was IL.




It came to mind yesterday when Dominik Belavy performed his graduation recital; he will receive his Master of Music Degree from Juilliard this year. We have had six years to appreciate his gentle lyric baritone and now it is time to see him move on. This is always a bittersweet time for the young artists and for this not-so-young reviewer. We love to see them move on to a professional career but we will miss them.


The reason we thought of that memorable moment from so many years ago was our witnessing the stunning manner in which Mr. Belavy came alive for the final set of his program, comprising Maurice Ravel's Histoires naturelles. This would never be on our short list of favorite cycles because of it's prosy quality, but Mr. Belavy's interpretation brought it up several levels in our estimation.

With great involvement he limned the self-important peacock, the frightened cricket, the cloud-obsessed swan, the combative Guinea hen, and above all, the image of a Kingfisher alighting on a fishing rod. His commitment to the text helped us to see everything in our mind's eye. It was a brilliant performance. We are sure that Mr. Belavy adores these songs. Oh, and did we mention that his French was as fine as one would wish and perfectly understandable?

What we adore is Schubert and collaborative pianist Chris Reynolds appears to share our feeling. His partnership with Mr. Belavy was most successful; still it is fair to say that Mr. Reynolds partners well with just about everyone. 

What we love about Schubert's lieder are the memorable melodies. The strophic nature of the songs helps these melodies to play over and over again in one's head so the delight is more than momentary. The major/minor shifts remind us that every joy has a touch of sadness and every grief has a touch of joy. Mr. Belavy responded by matching Mr. Reynold's variety of dynamics and color.

It is difficult to pick a favorite but "Des Fischers Liebesglück" is so filled with peaceful pleasure that we lean in that direction. Mr. Reynolds created the rocking of the boat and Mr. Belavy successfully negotiated the upward skips as he related the images of a courting couple out on the lake for a midnight row.

"Alinde" is right up there as well. Even though we just heard it recently it felt fresh and gave us the same pleasure at the end when the long-awaited Alinde finally arrives. Better late than never!

We found no flaw in Mr. Belavy's German and heard the same clarity in his performance of a selection of 17th c. English songs by Henry and William Lawes. These songs were accompanied by the theorbo, that magnificent instrument, here so well played by Joshua Stauffer, who also switched to baroque guitar for one song.

If we didn't relate to them we can attribute that to the use of the detestable music stand. Perhaps Mr. Belavy was too busy with other work to learn the songs sufficiently well to perform them off the book but we felt absolutely no connection. The tone was sweet, the words were clear, but the message stayed on the page. We found ourself focusing on that magnificent theorbo.

It occurred to us that perhaps Mr. Belavy did not love those songs so they stayed forlorn on the page. To give a song wings, one must love it and want to share it. So, JL was astute in his advice.  Mr. Belavy, sing what you love!

(c) meche kroop