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RECITAL REVIEW
May 1, 2005
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By Anna Carol Dudley
Baritone Eugen Brancoveanu, already making his mark as an opera singer here and abroad, made a strong showing as a recitalist Sunday at Temple Emanu-El, appearing in the Schwabacher Debut Recital Series. Now a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, he has been a Broadway Bohemian (as Marcello in Baz Luhrmann's production of La bohème) and recently sang in Michael Tilson Thomas' New York production of The Thomashefskys, to be reprised in San Francisco in June.
His is an impressive instrument, and his considerable dramatic gifts were put to particularly good use in three ballads by Carl Loewe. Goethe's ”Erlkönig,” familiar to many in Schubert's setting, is highly dramatic in Loewe's, and Brancoveanu created the three characters of the concerned father, the terrified son and the fatally beguiling Erlking with telling changes in stance and vocal color. The Erlking's daughter is equally bad news for “Lord Oluf,” who runs into her the day before his wedding. He refuses to dance with her, so she deals him a fatal blow and sends him home to his mother and his bride, to die. Again, the singer brought varied vocal colors and dynamic contrasts to the characters. The third ballad had a happier ending. “Tom the Poet” meets a fair lady on a white horse. She is the Queen of the Elves, who invites him to play his harp and sing for her, with the caveat that if he kisses her he will be hers for seven years. He kisses her and rides off with her, quite happy.
Brancoveanu, singing well in each of four languages, seemed particularly comfortable in German. His performances of Mahler's wrenching Kindertotenlieder (Songs of dead children), were heartfelt and moving, and ably supported by John Parr's orchestral playing of the piano part. It was a treat to hear the way both tore into the final song, "In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus" (in this weather, this windstorm), and came to its quiet aching end.
The French songs were Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. Again, the piano accompaniment was stellar, especially in the rhythmic underpinning of "Chanson Romanesque." Brancoveanu did not find quite the right sound for the hymn to St. Michael ("Chanson épique"); a warmer, more intimate sound would have been nice. But the drinking song ("Chanson à boire") he sang and acted to a fare-thee-well. His boisterous sound and tipsy timing and body language brought down the house. It is clear that this is a gifted opera singer with a powerful voice and strong dramatic presence. He is also a capable recitalist, with commendable command of languages and of the drama inherent in song. His program began with five settings by Gerald Finzi of songs from Shakespeare's plays, some of which were a better fit for him than others. "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" is a haunting song, seeming, in Finzi's treatment, to belong more to King Lear than to Cymbeline (from which it is taken), and Brancoveanu did it full justice. "Who is Sylvia?" got an appropriately straightforward performance. But he missed some of the subtleties in the other songs, using his large voice as a bit of a blunt instrument. "Come away, death" is extravagant but not serious (very few people actually die of love); "O Mistress Mine" is delicate and lightly insinuating; "It was a lover and his lass" also needs a light touch and slightly sly overtones. Three Italian songs by Respighi ended the program. Again a lighter touch would have been welcome in songs about the softness of snow and the patter of rain, especially after the darkness of the Mahler. But the singer was in his element in the last, "Nebbie" (Fog) - dark, cold and desolate. Two crowd-pleasing Italian encores cheered everybody up: "Susurra il vento" by Boxio, and "Torna a Sorrento" by Tosti.
(Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, member of the faculties of the
University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University lecturer emerita] and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.)
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