| CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Love's Ardor and June 24, 2002
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By Ching Chang
After a splendid company debut earlier this month in the San Francisco
Opera's lavish current production of Handel's Giulio Cesareconductor
Nicholas McGegan moonlighted last week leading the SF Opera's
youthful brigade of Adler Fellows in a chamber-scaled concert titled
"Baroque Heroes and Heroines," at the intimate Florence Gould Theater
in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Lest the Adlers be
accused of the old bait-and-switch, the somewhat mistitled event featured the
singers in an interesting assortment of baroque songs, airs and ensembles
by Handel, Scarlatti, Purcell, Rameau and Philidor, but they were not at all
about heroism. Rather, the intriguing songs rather depicted the timeless ardor and folly of love,
in myriad ways.
It was a chamber-scaled concert, McGegan leading from the harpsichord, with a small instrumental complement of SF Opera musicians (David Kadarauch, cello; Virginia Price-Kvistad,
Carla-Maria Rodrigues, and Robert Waters, violins). Perhaps the intention behind
this experiment was to inculcate in malleable young singers a more refined
sense of baroque style, under McGegan's guidance. If so, it has to be said that the results were only partially effective. A few of the performances evidenced the way that standard operatic training and pedagogy can at times inhibit spontaneous and
human-scaled musical expression. While some of the Adler Fellows readily
grasped the soothing ease of free-flowing pastoral airs and curlicuing
melisma, others saw their melodic phrases surrender
helplessly under the weight of massive operatic tone production.
Alessandro Scarlatti's Cantata Ahi, che sarà di me paired sopranos
Greta Feeney and Saundra DeAthos as two scorned lovers in mutual
commiseration. It was a problematic opening selection, as it found the
singers with fluttery tone and little timbral variation. De Athos also
sang a frantic "Volate, amori" (Ginevra's aria from Handel's Ariodante), and
though her soprano had an impressive and penetrating sound, the tonal center in her pitches might well have been pursued more assertively.
Tenor Brian Anderson sang with an attractive, pleasant clarion tone in Henry Purcell's "I'll Sail Upon the Dog Star" (from A Fool's Preferment), though this obviously gifted singer seemed to put too much effort into simple lines, as he has done before. Feeney (currently singing the thankless role of Kate Pinkerton in the mainstage production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly this summer) later returned to offer a fluid, deeply felt account of "Let me, O let me forever weep," from Purcell's Fairy Queen, rendered poignantly, free from the tyranny of meter. Yet, it was soprano Tiffany Abban who provided a highlight of the evening, in the sweeping lament "From Silent Shades," from Purcell's Mad Bess. Abban's account offered a generous sound, round and brilliant, with dramatic descents into chest voice that captured Bess' delusional grandeur and exasperation. McGegan's programming hand was most evident in the choice of "I Blow My Horn" from Tom Jones, Françoise-André Philidor's 1765 opera composed at the height of French Anglomania. This boisterous setting was given a vigorous and assertive reading by baritone Brad Alexander, singing with sustained intensity and virility. "Pour l'Auteur de mes jours," Theseus' parricidal invocation of Neptune from Jean-Phillippe Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, was delivered with marvelous theatrical flair by baritone Hugh Russell, in a narrative interwoven with short instrumental interludes, culminating in the boiling of the seas. Baritone Kwang Shik Pang offered a roaring, leonine account of the raging "Sorge infausta una procella" from Handel's Orlando with cleanly articulated runs and cascading multi-octave sequences.
(Ching Chang writes about classical music and opera for SFGate.com, the SF Bay Times, Opera News, and other publications.) ©2002 Ching Chang, all rights reserved |
