Lost in Song

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Felicity reigned Thursday night at Herbst Theatre as San Francisco Performances presented a concert by two superb musicians, soprano Felicity Lott and pianist Graham Johnson. The program, German in the first half and mainly French in the second, grouped songs according to the lyrics: settings of particular poets. The German songs started with settings by Gustav Mahler of poetry by Rückert, and ended with poems by Goethe set by Hugo Wolf. In between, a group of songs by Robert Schumann used poems by both poets.

Lott’s singing of this repertoire caught the mood of each song beautifully. Her attention to verbal and musical text was exemplary, and articulation and intonation were flawless. She could spin out a long phrase with seemingly endless reserves of breath. Her singing of Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world) was a pleasure to hear, especially in combination with Johnson’s caressing touch at the keyboard and his exquisite shaping of the lines.

In the German songs, Lott’s vocal quality was somewhat lacking in color, generally sounding better on o and u sounds — as in her tender singing of Wolf’s Anakreons Grab (Anakreon’s grave) — and thinner on the e end of the vowel continuum. But her gifts as an actress showed to great advantage in Schumann’s lively Singet nicht in Trauertönen (Sing not in mournful tones), as well as in Wolf’s So lasst mich scheinen (Let me appear), with its lovely pianissimo ending.

The first half ended with Wolf’s setting of Mignon’s song, Kennst du das Land (Do you know the land of lemons and oranges and light breezes?). Wolf’s setting is dramatic, and Lott gave it the full treatment, ably assisted by Johnson, whose mastery of dynamic range showed in blazing fortissimos that quickly subsided into soft passages and never overpowered the voice.

Dressed for the Voyage

Lott was clad in an elegant gray-green gown and jacket for the German songs. She returned after intermission in a stunning red creation closely fitted to her tall, slender form, signaling a marked change of tone. Her voice came to life and the singing actress took the stage: warm, witty, and very French. The only link to the first half of the program was Henri Duparc’s L’Invitation au voyage (Invitation to the voyage), which echoed Mignon’s longing for southern climes. In Baudelaire’s words, “there, bathed in warmth and light, all is harmony and beauty, luxury, calm, and pleasure.”

Continuing with other composers’ settings of poems by Baudelaire, Lott gave an exceedingly stylish performance, dripping with a kind of French portamento, of Pierre Capdevielle’s Je n’ai pas oublié (I haven’t forgotten). Equally engaging performances ensued of Le Chat I (First cat) by Henri Sauget, Le Jet d’eau ( Fountain) by Claude Debussy, and another haunting song by Duparc, La Vie antérieure (My former life).

Noel Coward came next: songs from his Conversation Piece, sung in French-accented English along with spoken dialog shared with Johnson. By the end of the recital, Lott was having great fun with French operetta songs to texts by Sacha Guitry, and the enthusiastic audience called her back for two encores, by Noel Coward and Francis Poulenc.

Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, member of the faculty of UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University lecturer emerita, and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music Society’s Baroque Music Workshop.