The Memory of Singing
Austrian mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager left an incomplete impression as a Lieder singer Sunday night, in a quirky recital program of Brahms, Wolf, Mahler and Reynaldo Hahn, with pianist Warren Jones.
Suffering from a cough and swallowing some words, Ms. Kirchschlager succeeded more in gesture than details. Breezing through Brahms’ songs ”Meine liebe ist grün,” ”Über die Heide,” and “Salome,” faux-naïve songs with thick, Schumannesque accompaniments, Kirchschlager often dropped consonants and clipped the ends of phrases.
Her lower register sometimes disappeared (working against her was Alice Tully Hall’s post-renovation acoustic, which is inhospitably live and bright) and in “Versunken” (Drowned) there was unintentionally irony when her final low tone failed to rise through the dense piano writing. Her “Nachtwandler” was cleaner and better elocuted, and she settled convincingly into the peacefully dusky “Dämm’rung senkt sich von Oben.”
On the Wolf Lieder, all with Mörike texts, she lavished more fond attention. Her affection for songs like “Auf einer Wanderung”, “Auf ein altes Bild,” and “Um Mitternacht” showed, and Wolf’s louder passages helped her upper register to shine with operatic, rounded nobility. “Begegnung” succeeded in its clever drama between the voice and piano accompaniment, ending with both the pianist’s hands scampering in chromatic contrary motion. The odd “Zur Warnung” is a kind of operatic scena, with experimental recitatives and melodramatic touches. It demands a candid narrator, and Ms. Kirchschlager summoned a kitchy theatricality to sell the piece. “Er ist’s,” ending the set, showcased her attractive upper register and rhythmic vigor – a moment of musical redemption.
Reynaldo Hahn’s “Le souvenir d’avoir chanté” and “Seule” are French parlour songs of a wan, sentimental sort, and they didn’t hold enough interest to draw attention away from Ms. Kirchschlager’s uneven, unsteady singing. The same was true in the Handelian “A chloris,” marred by a hooting, weighty quality. “Quand je fus pris au pavillon” and “L’heure exquise” are more crafty pieces, with delicate accompaniments that leave the singer exposed in the bottom of her range. Ms. Kirchschalger had poise and purpose, drawing listeners into the music’s unique and poetic stillness, as in “La chère blessure,” a more impassioned work which allowed her voice to expand in the room.
The tessitura of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs are a better fit for her high mezzo soprano. Pianist Warren Jones shadowed her with exceptional tact through the long melismas in “Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht,” which floated expansively and landed gently. The folksy naiveté present in “Verlor’ne Müh!” and “Rheinlegendchen,” if somewhat redundant, was delivered with spunky irony, to the delight of her audience. Nestled between these romantic comedies were “Das irdische Leben,” a heart-wrenching nightmare of mother’s grief, and “Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen,” a long and obtuse metaphysical love song, offered ploddingly and without strong insights.
In an awkward turn, she finished the oddly mismatched program with “Lob des hohen Verstandes.” Mahler’s songs intentionally mix high and low, the crude and heavenly. But ending with the whimsical tale of a donkey adjudicating a song contest between a cuckoo and nightingale elevated childish barnyard sounds (hee haw!) to a place of unlikely artistic purpose. At least she bade farewell to this grateful audience on a cheerful note.
Obtuse che vuol dire?
Kirchschlager’s appeal completely eludes me. Generic short soprano sound (can YOU remember what she sounds like five minutes after you’ve heard her?) and a limited emotional range — winsome or cheeky.
She wowed Paris as Sesto – but they’re pushovers.
Neither a distinctive voice nor a particularly insightful imagination.
But good looking.
I never quite got her or Suzanne Mentzer. Sounds like we were lucky to have missed the recital.
Mentzer has a more distinctive sound — at least I can remember she has s fluttery vibrato and a creamy, but slightly cloudy texture.
“Of The Monster Ball, Lady Gaga told Rolling Stone: “The theatrics and story elements are in the style of an opera.” And yet I’m scratching my head to think of an opera that includes a lesbian orgy in a dentist’s chair.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/nov/30/lady-gaga-monster-ball
…after all, Angie is already boring us.
I just saw Gaga’s show in Montreal. She’s a unique talent, and her songs stick in your head with a vengeance. She has a Teresa Stratas-like presence (which is to say she has a strangely quiet charisma that draws you to her without you really knowing why). Also, she understands the art of intimacy. When she sits at the piano she can draw a stadium right into her world, like few can. The show was dynamite.
She also ended the night with a recording of a song with piano…it was in German, and I am guessing my have been Brahms or Schubert. A really fun night.
You have to be impressed by a rock show that involves “a lesbian orgy in a dentist’s chair” and lines like “Scream for me, my little monsters!”
She’s got to be doing something right.
But I suspect La Cieca will find this for the Regie quiz next week.
I hope if Gaga tours Germany she stops by the opera in Hamburg or Stuttgart. Herheim is probably just her style.
I heard Kirsch. sing Cherubino in San Francisco years ago
and she stole the show. The voice had a great deal of
‘presence’ in the house — it was right there in your lap.
Meanwhile, Sylvia McNair, the Susanna, was so very loud
and can-belto in style, we left before Deh vieni in the final
act so we did not have to endure her. Thank God she’s
retired from opera, but the lovely Angelika K. needs to
get her act together and rebuild her career, for she is a
lovely and could be major talent.
Frau K is no Fruehlingshuhn, so I doubt she is going to change direction much.
Yes, McNaiar – LOUD. A hard Broadway-esque sound
that rode and , in fact, the top of every ensemble. It was
very odd indeed, because earlier on in her career she had
been so much better. IU people from “back then” tell me
she did not take instruction well and never mastered her
technique. Ho hum. Who needs it?
So, Monty – I suspect you are correct on A. K. Too bad;
I had thought for a while the new Christa Ludwig. Not so.
wait, mcnair was “loud”?
I agree Kirch has something to bring to the table, but not exactly sure what that is. Anybody see her Octavian? good?
Yes, McNaiar – LOUD. A hard Broadway-esque sound
that rode and , in fact, the top of every ensemble. It was
very odd indeed, because earlier on in her career she had
been so much better. IU people from “back then” tell me
she did not take instruction well and never mastered her
technique. Ho hum. Who needs it?
Well, finally she knows why they shut her out of Heaven.
IU is where she teaches now.
Yes, that comment about McNair being loud struck me too. I never actually had trouble hearing her, but loud it was not.
Did anyone hear Sylvia McNair’s new Weill program?
This always cheers me up:
Too bad she stopped singing opera -- she would have been a great Nozze countess. I heard her sing the two big aria’s during one of Susanne Mentzer’s Jubilate evenings. She was singing Rosina in Ghosts of Versailles at the time -- I went back just to listen to her several times.
I also remember a fabulous song recital -- with the best Shepherd on the Rock of my life. Alfred Brendel wanted her for this in Salzburg, but I don’t know if that ever happened. She than cancelled a tour with the Four Last Songs, and that seemed to be the end of her “serious” career.
I am happy she is doing well.
Thanks Buster! She is heaven in this.
One should also consider her (successful) breast cancer treatment. The chemotherapy was apparently severe.