San Francisco Classical Voice

Ruth Ann Swenson

Some singers can star on both the opera and the recital stage. Ruth Ann Swenson, on the evidence of Thursday's concert in Herbst Theater, is not one of them. Her voice is beautiful and she is capable of dynamic nuance, expressive coloratura and strong characterization, which she uses in operatic repertory. She came alive in her last number, bringing Meyerbeer's Ombre légère vividly to life. This and her four encores, all from the operatic or Broadway stage did as much for her audience. The rest of the program only occasionally had that effect.

The Meyerbeer aria--a mad song in which Dinorah dances with her own shadow--featured echo effects, shapely chromatic runs, and trills, all of which Swenson performed with technical mastery and a strong sense of inhabiting the character. The same was true of her encores--Puccini's O mio babbino caro, and Gounod's Ah! je veux vivre, plus Over the Rainbow and I'll See You Again--striking in characterization, style and projection of words.

In other repertory, it was impossible to catch words, even if one could make them out in the program. (The hall was kept too dark. Lighting for voice recitals should always be up enough to read translations.) The program started with two groups of Italian songs and it was a shock to realize in the third group that we were supposedly listening to French. Her English wasn't much better.

Two songs by Verdi did suit this singer. She had a fine sense of narrative, phrasing, timing and character in La seduzione, ending with a beautifully sustained phrase. her use of vocal coloring was well suited to Stornello, which also showed her excellent low range. She was communicating a real personality. Here as through the entire evening, she had the able support of pianist Warren Jones.

Other songs showed always a ravishing sound but very little sense of style. Cavalli lacked a sense of Baroque rhetoric; Rossini needed more underlying dance feeling and not to be taken so seriously; Bellini sounded like everyone else. Her singing of French songs, by Hahn and Bachelet, also featured a series of beautifully placed tones and a very restricted emotional palette, as did Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, in which musical means must be found to express the feelings of this wordless piece.

According to the program notes, Mozart's scena and aria, Misera, dove son!, was written for a soprano who was a "good singer but not a transcendent one." With her mushy diction, lack of stylistic differentiation between recitative and aria, and surprisingly anticlimactic ending, Swenson risked comparison. It may be that she misses the support of an orchestra.

A group of songs by John Duke brought a liveliness of expression to her face. She looked as though the words had meaning for her, and her projection of e.e. cummings' words in i carry your heart was good, convincing the listener of her involvement. Perhaps she should bring more of the verve and the American sound of her Broadway numbers to these songs. The composers, poets and singer are all American, after all. Why be inhibited by some stilted idea of English diction?

I feel that the program of this recital was made up mostly of music which the singer thought should be in a recital, rather than music which she loves and sings best. The teenager of O mio babbino caro, the poor madwoman of Ombre légère, the strong woman of Stornello were all so real, and sung with such vocal mastery, that I think this singer should stick with them.

(Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, lecturer emerita at San Francisco State University, and director of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.)

©1999 Anna Carol Dudley, all rights reserved