San Francisco Classical Voice

Katia Giselle Escalera -- a mezzo from Cochabamba, Bolivia -- has it all: voice, projection, diction, looks, presence. She will go far. Kyu Won Han, a baritone from Seoul, Korea, has all the same attributes. He may or may not make it. The reason is simple: Escalera sings in her own voice, whereas Han's voice placement and projection seem to come from an artificial amalgam of Great Baritones of the Past. I'd give an eyetooth to hear the real Han. There is a young singer of great potential hidden there somewhere.

Today's Schwabacher Debut Recital provided this fascinating similarity-and-contrast, and then something wonderful: the clear, pure soprano of Twyla Robinson, a young singer of extraordinary sensitivity and ability. Joining the three featured Adler Fellows for the program-closing Liebeslieder Walzer was tenor Todd Geer.

The almost all-Brahms program in Old First Church began with Handel's "Langue, geme, sospira e si lagna" (continuo realization by Brahms), and in an alarming fashion. Through the din of the hall's dreadful acoustics, Mark Morash set the afternoon's consistent accompaniment tone: slam-bang, slow and boring, wrong notes, counteracting the singing part of singing, which after all was the advertised attraction. Morash didn't improve, but the young singers, bless 'em, did. The Four duets, with Escalera and Han, were still on the downside, with Han singing loudly and noisily, adding to the din, not ameliorating it.

What could such remedy be? Robinson, singing Five Songs of Ophelia, demonstrated the almost impossible trick of rising above the double noise of the hall's echo chamber and a poorly played piano. She accomplished this through crystalline diction and a simplicity of expression that was moving in itself, independent of Brahms' interpretation of Shakespeare's text. She is a major, mature talent. And then, with Robinson and Escalera singing Duets for Soprano and Alto, the concert reached its peak, from the delightfully silly "The Sisters" to the lyric beauty of "On the Beach." (The concluding "The Way of Love," with its beautiful music and inferior text, would work better as an orchestral piece.)

Escalera's star turn came in Two Songs for Alto, Viola and Piano, with San Francisco Opera principal violist Carla-Maria Rodrigues laying down a plangent carpet of sound for the mezzo to journey on, from "Yearning Appeased" to "Sacred Lullaby." Like Robinson, Escalera has already reached a degree of maturity such that she simply sings, not reaching for effects, just letting the music speak -- or rather sing -- for itself. The soprano and mezzo were also part of the SFO Center's recent Albert Herring, which stands as a landmark in the history of training-center performances. With these two, and the Center's other singers, it's easy to see how that happened.

(Janos Gereben is arts editor of Oakland's Post Newspaper Group, and senior editor of www.the451.com.)

©2000 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved