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RECITAL REVIEW
Another Ardent Young Baritone January 6, 2002
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By Ching Chang
The latest entrant in a crowded field of high-profile baritones touring with programs of German Lieder, twenty-eight year old German baritone Stephan Genz offers compelling proof that the Romantic art song is alive and well in the post-Fischer-Dieskau generation. Accompanied by the distinguished British pianist Roger Vignoles, Genz made his Bay Area debut this past weekend, offering carefully selected sets of Lieder from the songbooks of Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert and Wolf.
Genz’s recital, Sunday afternoon at Berkeley's First Congregational Church, evidenced many of the qualities which have earned him international praise and attention recently. This talented young artist displays an elegant, assured presentation on stage; his voice is a refined lyrical baritone, well-focused, ascending eloquently to a firm and compelling top.
Perhaps Genz's most distinctive quality is his beautifully clear, spontaneous diction, rendering cleanly the German poetry of Heine, Eichendorff and Goethe not only for the sake of their verbal meaning, but also for their textual richness. Genz seems traditional to a fault in his interpretive approach, but given the faddish onstage behavior of many current big-name recitalists, his unapologetic reliance on old-school traditions may be just as well.
The recital opened with Beethoven's "An die ferne Geliebte," Op. 98, a through-composed cycle of six songs set to poems by Aloys Jeitteles, which Genz and Vignoles recorded just three years ago for the British Hyperion label. In this work, Genz claimed his personal space unimposingly, pacing the initial verse with a calm and unhurried pulse, which heightened the breathless effect of the hammered Beethovenian climaxes to come. During the Beethoven, the singer's upper register revealed some excessively pronounced overtones, but the problem vanished by the time Genz took on a set of Schubert songs to texts of Goethe. He sang "Der Musensohn," D. 764, with great excitement, breathing life into an old, familiar recital filler with a beautifully phrasing. The transitions in "Ganymed," D. 544, were rendered with a marvelous sense of surprise, fully conveying the glorious apotheosis of Zeus' cupbearer. On the piano, Roger Vignoles’ usually impeccable support seemed inexplicably muddled and over-pedaled, qualities heightened possibly by the dubious state of the resident instrument at the First Congregational Church. Schumann's mini-cycle Tragödie, Op. 64, proved to be the most troublesome set in the recital. Genz chose to present only the first two songs in this short but very beautiful three-song cycle, set to poems by Heine. The exhilaration of "Entflieh mit mir und sei mein Weib" does have the naïve feel of the early songs in "Frauenliebe und Leben," but Genz’s reliance on effects and cliched poses was a bit excessive. His usually excellent sense of pitch left him, as he was spectacularly flat at the climax of this particular song. He was unsettled enough that the ensuing selection, "Lehn' deine Wang'" from Op. 142, suffered from a false start, but the Schumann set concluded with a blazing rendition of the episodic, grand setting of Heine's "Belshazzar," Op. 57. The recital ended with a fine set of Hugo Wolf songs on poems by Eichendorff, rendered with a most impressive range of expression. The two settings of "Der Soldat" were infused with a deliciously irreverent, frantic feel, followed by a probing, liquid and evocative rendition of "Der Scholar" and "Die Nacht." At the end were a joyous reading of "Liebesglück" and a gripping account of "Seemanns Abschied," followed by the lone encore, "Blumengrüss," also by Wolf. (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 |