Sometimes the act of artistic creation is more involving than the music itself. On the first stop of a coast-to-coast “
"Remembrance Concert Tour” that will culminate in Carnegie Hall, soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian graced the stage of Herbst Theatre on Saturday night. Her San Francisco Performances recital celebrated the music of Armenia’s national composer, genocide victim Reverend Gomidas Vartabed (1869-1935). In doing so, Bayrakdarian, who was born in Lebanon of Armenian parentage, also paid tribute to the victims of all genocides, including the Jewish Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, and Rwandan genocide.
Gomidas is credited with preserving Armenia’s rich musical heritage by collecting and notating more than 3,000 songs and dances; these include the medieval hymns of the Armenian Church in which he served as a celibate priest (or
vartabed). Acknowledged as “The Father of Armenian Classical Music,” and renowned worldwide as a composer, ethnomusicologist, and choirmaster, he was one of some 300 Armenian intellectuals arrested and deported in 1915 in the first stage of the Turkish government’s Armenian genocide. During the onslaught, everything was destroyed — churches, music, singing villagers: all musical and ceremonial remnants of Armenia’s 4,000-year-old civilization. While Gomidas survived, thanks to the intervention of U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, he lost friends, students, his choir, and most of his life’s work. Emotionally devastated and unable to compose, he succumbed to illness, and eventually died in a mental institution in Paris.
In addition to three sets of songs by Gomidas — two
Songs of Yearning, four
Songs of Nature and Love, and four
Songs for Children and Humor — and five of his lovely Dances for piano, the program included music by Bartók (Romanian Folk Dances), Ravel (
Deux Melodies Hébraïques), Nikos Skalkottas (Greek Dances, Opus 11), and Holocaust victim Gideon Klein (“Variations on a Moravian Folksong” from the
Partita for Strings). By highlighting how the rich folk heritage of other cultures affected other classical composers, Bayrakdarian underscored the folk roots of Gomidas’ achievement.
Back to Basics
As Bayrakdarian’s just-released Nonesuch recording of Gomidas’ songs (recorded over three years ago) attests, many of the songs Gomidas preserved exhibit a mixture of simple, childlike naivete and heart-tugging sadness. Most have a limited range, lying lower in Bayrakdarian’s voice. They may not be, at least in Serouj Kradjian’s arrangements, as colorful and engrossing as Canteloube’s
Songs of the Auvergne, but they possess significant cumulative power.
Although they’re hardly as deep as the Ravel songs, they may in fact also possess the “mystical and universally soul-stirring quality” that the concert program suggests. Unfortunately, any possibility of mystical transport was destroyed by audience members who refused to heed the printed program’s request to hold applause until the end of each set. Not only did they applaud after virtually every song and instrumental selection, they also noisily turned pages in a semifutile attempt to reconcile the order of texts and translations in the program insert with the complete program printed in the larger brochure. A simple announcement from the stage and retention of the full program order in the insert would have made a huge difference.
To everything she sang, Bayrakdarian brought beautiful tone, an affecting empathy, and considerable grace and poise. Since winning the prestigious 2000 Operalia competition, the 34-year-old soprano’s voice has blossomed into glowing maturity. It retains its lustrous, lyric edge, but has gained substantially in body. The passage of time and perhaps the experience of motherhood — Bayrakdarian’s child is 10 months old — have contributed to a notable expansion in expression and gravitas. If anything, the strikingly wide emotional compass, impassioned vocalism, and tonal beauty that she has shared in local performances with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, have only increased. Her performance of Ravel’s “Kaddish” (Prayer) did not have heart-seizing profundity, but it was extremely moving.
Ably supporting her were the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Anne Manson; pianist and arranger Kradjian; and
duduk master Hampic Djabourian. Although Manson’s stiff, jerky, nervous conducting style was distracting — dressed in a semimilitary style blazer, she resembled an army band conductor who had morphed into a semaphore signaler — her ensemble played quite well. Special gratitude belongs to Concertmaster Karl Stobbe, whose soulful musicianship was especially plaintive and poetic in the Bartók.
When onstage, Bayrakdarian’s husband Kradjian was positioned at the piano closest to the audience, with the lid open all the way. As well as posing no challenge to Bayrakdarian, the choice to allow the piano’s sound to bloom enabled Kradjian to produce a twinkling, sparkling sound that ideally supported many of the songs. In Djabourian’s hands, the duduk seemed to speak with the soul of Armenia — as did Bayrakdarian.
At the end of the short, lovely evening, the soprano gave us three Gomidas encores. After the first of two lullabies, she noted that she used to sing it in a higher key, but lowered it after her infant voiced his disapproval. Thankfully, she threw in one impressively strong, high ending on another selection to give us a sense of her ability to master repertoire of greater range and emotional expression. If she did not receive a huge standing ovation, it was only because the sweet nature of Gomidas’ touching material and Kradjian’s arrangements were more conducive to inward smiles than vociferous outbursts.