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RECITAL REVIEW
November 13, 2005
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By Stephanie Friedman
Jonathan Lemalu, the 29-year-old Samoan-born bass-baritone from New
Zealand, is a work in progress. Though he possesses ample — even
passionate — temperament, an attractive tenor-y "ping," and a warm
tone — when he doesn't push it — his voice still sounds only partially finished. His choice of repertoire doesn't always suit him, and his interpretations
don't penetrate very deeply. There is no doubt he has plenty of operatic
ability, but he has more work to do before he can join the ranks of top
interpreters of the truly demanding art song repertoire.
Schumann's Dichterliebe (Poet's Love), the centerpiece of
Lemalu's program at Hertz Hall on Sunday, is a case in point. Heine's simple
poems are in fact laced with ironic undertones, which at times escape even
Schumann's compositional grasp. The piano, by this time in the
development of the German Lied a full partner with the singer, constantly
echoes, anticipates, and comments on the singer's line. (In fact, in
this song cycle, as in the Frauenliebe und Leben (Woman's Life and
Love), the piano part often continues in a lengthy postlude after the
singer has concluded, as if the composer didn't quite trust the singer to
express everything he had to say.) The piano's every echo and anticipation of
the vocal line sends an invitation to the singer to somehow anticipate the
echo, or echo the anticipation; working with, around, or against the piano on
innumerable occasions. Lemalu, for the most part, declined these
invitations.
Malcolm Martineau, the pianist for the recital, about whose sympathetic,
imaginative, and skillful piano-playing laudatory volumes could be
written, offered so many unaccepted invitations to the singer that I lost count.
Lemalu sang mostly at a somewhat angry forte, or a subdued, uninflected
piano. It was the pianist, therefore, who demonstrated how the songs
might be interpreted; the singer's participation in a full, satisfying
interpretation was lacking.
Little can be done, to be sure, to avoid expressing unvarnished anger, and nothing but anger, from start to finish of "Ich grolle nicht" (I bear no grudge). Schumann's accompaniment, impassioned and relentless, is perhaps to blame. But surely the singer can attempt something a little different in the second stanza of the song. The poet has a dream in which he sees "die Nacht in deines Herzens Raume" (night in the chamber of your heart), and, more chillingly, "die Schlang, die dir am Herzen frisst" (the serpent who feeds on your heart). At this point Schumann pulls the dynamic way back to a piano, giving singer and pianist, but especially singer, opportunity to delve beyond anger into, perhaps, anguish, self-pity, denial, before making a slow crescendo back to the bitter, futile "ich grolle nicht." Lemalu sounded as if he couldn't wait to get back to the forte. An even better example of Heine's heart-rending, ironic treatment of the protagonist's suffering can be found in "Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen" (On a brilliant summer's morning). The poet is walking in the garden; the flowers are whispering to him: "Sei unser Schwester nicht böse / Du trauriger, blasser Mann" (Do not be angry with our sister, you sad, pale man). Here Schumann is equal to the task at hand. The accompaniment suggests the gentle waving of the flowers in a benign breeze. All is innocence and simplicity. At the appearance of the words quoted above, however, in one of the supremely beautiful moments of the literature, Schumann modulates, sends the voice up an excruciating half-step, pulls the dynamic back to a pianissimo, and writes "langsamer" (slower). Something different is going on here; something more is required to express it than the soft, tender singing that Lemalu ably offered. In the single voice of the singer, one must hear the poet's voice, replete as it must be with deep traces of suffering; the sweet voices of the flowers themselves; and the poet interpreting — in the moment, as it were — the words of the flowers. A difficult task, to be sure, but an experienced, sensitively attuned singer can accomplish it. Perhaps some day Lemalu will attempt that worthy task. The singer found his stride in a set of Brahms songs, especially in his beautiful renderings of "Salamander" and the opening of "Dein blaues Augen" (Thy blue eyes). But even in this set, Brahms' more effusive moments tempted the singer into vocal outpourings that bordered on anger. He should find in his vocal equipment more subtle gradations of the stronger emotions.
In Roger Quilter's Four Shakespeare Songs, Lemalu sang with clarity of purpose and appropriate force. His diction in "When daffodils begin to peer" from The Winter's Tale was crisp and delectable, and "Sigh no more, ladies" from Much Ado About Nothing was ingratiating. A final set of songs from William Bolcom's Cabaret Songs was well-suited to the singer, though the texts by Arnold Weinstein are somewhat baffling and self-conscious. Of these, "Waitin,'" with its lazy, jazzy accompaniment, was the most persuasive. As encores, singer and pianist offered Gerald Finzi's setting of "Who is Silvia" from Two Gentlemen of Verona , which compared favorably with the Quilter version heard earlier, and "As I walked by myself," from Richard Rodney Bennett's Songs Before Sleep , written for the singer.
(Stephanie Friedman, mezzo-soprano, is retired from more than three decades of singing in opera and concert, here and abroad.)
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Jonathan Lemalu
