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RECITAL REVIEW
A Singer's Comeback, Impressive but Flawed
April 29, 2001
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By Stephanie Friedman
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, who gave a vocal recital Sunday at Zellerbach, accompanied by Judith Gordon, has always been a courageous singer in any piece where there is drama. Using her innate musicality and generous, expressive voice, she inhabits a dramatic piece, drawing it onto her body like a garment especially tailored to her histrionic qualities. Words like "mesmerizing," "shocking," and "spellbinding" have been used to describe the effect she has on those who hear and see her perform. She exists on the very edge of expressiveness, staring into the abyss.
It is a wonder, then, that Sunday's performance was so restrained, so strangely timorous, almost at times detached. To be sure, there were a few pieces like the opening aria, "Qual leon" from Arianna , the obligatory Handelian "ferocious animal" simile, in this case a lion, which called forth from the mezzo a voice full and animated, although the low tessitura made the runs a little sticky going. She punched up her arm in a sweeping gesture every time she sang the word "pugna" ("blow," "fighting"), as if to lash her voice upwards.
Next, the singer offered a beautifully subdued aria, "Vieni o figlio" ("Come my son"), from Handel's Ottone. The ornaments in the da capo section were not altogether felicitous, and sometimes on cadences they soared inappropriately into higher, more comfortable territory.
These two pieces set a pattern that did not vary throughout the afternoon: occasional fortes wrenched out of a damped-down approach to the songs. Missing was a sort of underlying "mental legato" driving the interpretations. It may have been a lack of concentration on the part of the singer or a lack of energy, but many times what should have been supremely moving was not. The three poems by Rainer Maria Rilke in Peter Lieberson's projected five-song cycle are more complex than the mostly delicate, not unattractive settings made manifest. Lines like "Was ist dein leidendste Erfahrung?/ Ist ihr Trinken bitter, werde Wein" ("What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?/ If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine") seem to call for an underpinning of irony and a consolatory note that the textual setting and accompaniment do not supply. Quite beautifully set, on the other hand, was the line, "Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermass" ("Be, in this immeasurable darkness"), but it was exceptional. On the whole, the settings did not enhance the poems, and the delivery was undistinguished. In a similar way "Triraksha's aria" from Lieberson's opera Ashoka's Dream, with libretto by Douglas Penick, did not inspire much characterization from the singer, though she rose to passionate heights on the oddly repeated words "longed for him/ longed for him." And what was the reason for the countless repetitions of the word "where," sung with rising excitement but to no evident purpose?
Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben (A Woman's Life and Love) made up the second half of the program. It was here that Hunt Lieberson's choices of tempo and mood were most problematical and puzzling. She seemed to be aiming for an inwardness, but her tempos were so slow that at times they threatened to halt altogether. In "Du Ring an meinem Finger" ("Ring on my finger"), the slow piano arpeggios unraveled pitifully at the retarded tempo. Though Hunt Lieberson seemed to conceive of the song as a meditation and was deliberate and contemplative, the tempo was too slow to sustain the young woman's wonder and rapture. Hunt Lieberson's singing of the phrase "Nicht begehr ich mehr" ("I am no longer eager"), in the first song, typified a certain reticence in approaching the German language. The phrase should contain a mixture of joy and anxiety at the prospect of leaving childhood games for the unknown realm of love. But the singer barely probed below the surface of the emotion, seeming reluctant to let herself dig deeply into the vowels, here as in the Rilke songs.The bite and depth of words like "nur" and "blicke" evaded her, weakening the interpretation of the song. And again, more stress on the off-beat first word of the phrase "Brich, o Herz, was liegt daran?" ("Break, o heart, what does it matter?") would have underlined the almost triumphant ferocity addressed by the girl to her own heart and given the song the pungent character it missed.
Only in the brief penultimate song, "An meinem herzen, an meiner Brust" ("At my heart, at my breast"), did Hunt Lieberson allow herself to set a tempo that gave life to the ecstasy of the new mother. But it was too late in the cycle to counterbalance the earlier overuse of languid tempos and damped-down readings. The final song, the searing, heartbreaking "Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan" ("Now have you given me pain for the first time"), evoked not the totally devastated scene that now lies before the new widow, but a quiescent rendering punctuated by a few poignant words like "leer" ("empty") or the beautifully dissonant "Schleier" ("veil"), as the woman retreats into her inner world, where she can preserve everything she has lost. Words such as these were perfectly limned by the singer, as was the etching of grief-borne knowledge on her face, held throughout the long piano postlude. Had such penetrating artistry colored more of the cycle, it might have lived as it should, breathed, and drawn to a satisfying close. Indeed, so might have the entire concert. For encores, Hunt Lieberson offered a curiously unmoving rendition of the spiritual "Deep River" and Handel's "As with rosy steps" from Theodora. Again, the ornaments in the latter were not particularly well chosen, and the singing, though, as earlier, suprisingly muted, was always marvelously audible. (Stephanie Friedman, mezzo-soprano, has performed in this country and abroad, in opera and recital. She teaches singing at U.C. Davis and Holy Names College.) ©2001 Stephanie Friedman, all rights reserved |
