|
FESTIVAL REVIEW
|
By Ching Chang
One of this year's most anticipated events at the Carmel Bach Festival was
a marvelous idea on paper: a bunch of world-class musicians shedding the austerity of J.S. Bach's endlessly argumentative counterpoints, delight themselves and audience in the simple Italianate pleasures of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's most essentially vocal music. As it turned out, however, the transalpine journey proved to be a sleepy one for conductor/festival- director Bruno Weil and his musicians. While the Pergolesi concert last Friday was subtitled "High Spirits and Low Comedy," switching those opposing qualifiers might have provided a more accurate characterization of the event.
The concert opened with Max Reger's arrangement for string orchestra of
Bach's chorale O Mensch, bewein dein Sunde gross ("Man, bewail thy
grievous sins"). A solemn piece with soothing qualities, [one detected](it revealed) a subtle hint of Viennese schmaltz coming from Reger's treatment. Bruno Weil led members of the Festival orchestra in a reading which was
surprisingly opaque and of tightly rationed dynamic range.
Though you could argue that the blandness of the opening selection was
perhaps desired effect, nothing prepared for the clinical, arid
reading of the Psalm 51, Tilge, Hoechster meine Suenden ("God, annul my sins") set by J.S. Bach to Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, which followed next. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, wildly successful in the 18th
century, was thought to be the perfect balance of form and grace,
tastefully integrating elements of drama and operatic grandeur
into the restraints of sacred music. Bach's setting, while clearly a
stricter and more conservative version of the Catholic original, was never
meant to strip this beautiful piece of its humanity, emotional feeling
and sense of drama as Bruno Weil so decisively did . Playful
fugatos, leaping sequences, echoing motifs were rendered with deadly
dullness, robbed of coloration, stress accents and any sense of
the surprise which brings this piece to life.
This was a rare occasion when the performance of a single work does
disservice to two composers at once. Soprano Kendra Colton and mezzo
Catherine Robbin were only slightly more involved than Weil in their
assignments. Whether in duets or solo arias, there was never a sense
of soaring spirit in their voices, merely of singing competently for
one's supper at a church service. There was sometimes a palpable dark
tension in the way they rendered the deliciously tight suspensions in the
opening movement, but diction suffered abysmally in pursuit of tone
coloration. Their textureless and incomprehensible rendition of the text
seemed like a determined homage to Joan Sutherland.
Things looked decidedly rosier in the second half, as the great American
baritone Sanford Sylvan assumed the role of Uberto, and soprano Rosa
Lamoureaux took on the role of Serpina in a semi-staged performance
of Pergolesi's charming intermezzo, The Maid as Mistress (or La serva padrona in its original Italian). Originally intended for performance sandwiched between acts of Pergolesi's opera seria, Il prigioniero superbo, this deceptively light-hearted interlude quickly took off on its own, to become a seminal work in the development of opera buffa.
Bruno Weil's main assignment in this second half, was to stay out of
his singers' way, and that at least, he did accomplish. Performed in
an English translation, the work afforded the two singers plus Vespone,
a mute part played by Allen Townsend, various opportunities for spirited
displays of singing and humorous improvised romps around the stage. Soprano
Rosa Lamoureaux sang the title role of the witty maid with a marvelous sense
of comic timing. Her opening aria, "Serpina wants it so," was made all
the more effective by her pricelessly mischievous facial expressions.
With a clean and easy lyric voice, she also brought a graceful warmth to
the aria "Serpina, you may remember."
Sanford Sylvan's spontaneous elegance and colloquial tone was ideally
suited to the role of Uberto. Though the role can be a bit low for his
voice--several of Uberto's low E's were transposed an octave higher--Sylvan
as a performer is invariably attuned to a character's temperament.
Nuances and details that are usually glossed over in throw-away "patter"
arias can emerge in vivid characterizations. The chemistry achieved
between Sylvan and Lamoureaux was particularly precious in the graphic
interplay of echoing heartbeats in the final duet.
(Ching Chang is a regular contributor to the SF Bay Times and The SF Gate.)
©1999 Ching Chang, all rights reserved
|
