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Spivey Weekend: Opera Star and Soulful Bach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW
at Spivey Hall. Saturday, mezzo Joyce DiDonato and pianist Julius Drake. Sunday, Ensemble Corund and conductor Stephen Smith, www.spiveyhall.org.
Business as usual at Spivey Hall over the weekend — which meant that an upcoming superstar diva gave her Atlanta debut Saturday night, to a deliriously happy audience. And, the next afternoon, a Swiss period-instrument orchestra and choir delivered a joyous and deeply soulful performance of music by J.S. Bach.
Neither concert sold out the 400-seat recital hall. Like the weather, or scoring Braves tickets during the playoffs, this might be one advantage of living in Atlanta. In cultural capitals, the New Yorks and San Franciscos of the world, a maximally distinguished concert series like Spivey’s — in an acoustically perfect room — would be sold out years in advance, with a waiting list for subscriptions. Here, you just walk up to the box office and tell ‘em how many tickets you need.
Fortunately, in neither case did the performers seem slighted by the pockets of empty seats. Joyce DiDonato, a hard-working Kansan on the fast track to international acclaim, arrived with two points on her agenda. She sang songs in Spanish (or evoking Spain), linked to her new CD, “Pasion!” And she offered superlative Rossini — in preparation for her starring role in the Metropolitan Opera’s upcoming “Barber of Seville.” (On March 24, “Barber” will be televised live in high-definition to movie theaters across the country. These broadcasts are likely to sell out; Will supposedly in-the-know operaphiles kick themselves for having missed her local debut?)
DiDonato’s sensational vocalism and charm were evident from the start, almost. She opened with Spanish-flavored songs by Georges Bizet, sung in French. In a tune called “Pastorale,” impersonating a love-struck shepherd, she seductively offered the words “laisse-moi prendre un tendre baiser” (let me steal a tender kiss) with radiant sweetness — a naturally gorgeous voice made personal by a glint of charisma. We swooned.
Yet in French she didn’t declaim the texts as would a native speaker; she tended to coast on the vowels, robbing these songs of essential nuance.
She seemed more comfortable, or at least better prepared, singing in Spanish. Enrique Granados’ set of “Desolate Maiden” songs are characterized by big stone-block chords in the piano, with the singer high above, suffering or raging at her fate.
Here DiDonato took off: her bright mezzo (with a tinge of husky contralto at the low end) exploded in opulence, the last word in radiant, bejeweled singing.
Pianist Julius Drake, an ideal partner, was at times a full orchestra in richness, elsewhere sounding like another singer in duet.
In Manuel De Falla’s “Seven Popular Songs” and a Cuban set by Xavier Montsalvatge, her voice crackled with earnest vitality. Still, DiDonato isn’t especially soulful, and she works hard to shrug off interpretive plainness. What was clear from her Rossini — the “Joan of Arc” cantata and two encores — was her awesome power and unthreatening female allure.
Sunday afternoon, the Ensemble Corund, based in Lucerne, played Bach off the beaten track. A short sinfonia to start, three motets, an Albinoni sinfonia as a palette cleanser, and then Bach’s G minor Mass, one of the lesser known “Lutheran masses” — together it formed a program of lofty spirituality via contrapuntal concentration.
The Corund’s founder and conductor is Stephen Smith, an Alabama native who studied in Switzerland and never left. A few years ago, he auditioned for the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra’s directorship. It didn’t work out, which is a pity because Smith’s revelatory approach to early music is a world away from what we’re used to hearing.
His one-to-a-part Corund players — eight singers and eight instrumentalists — offered a Central European style, organic, earthy and dark. The bassoonist, for example, drew moist, peat-mossy tones from his instrument. In the motet “Singet dem Herrn,” the fine choristers trudged through a complex fugue — where the voices didn’t blend but remained strongly individual, which highlighted each line.
(In comparison, the way Atlanta Baroque and Atlanta’s New Trinity Baroque play Bach sounds rather slick and manicured in tonal homogeneity, where virtuosity and “accuracy” are ends in themselves.)
In the mass, Smith shaped each phrase for maximum texture, where music took on the sharp smell and graininess of fresh cut pine. This was a performance with period instruments and an integrated playing aesthetic that’s likely as close to Bach’s own cultural practices as we can get, 250 years after the fact.
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By Harriet
March 16, 2007 9:35 AM | Link to this
First, I want you to know that I appreciate your excellent music reviews. but I think you got it wrong in last Wed. AJC when you blamed the poor attendance at Spivey Hall on lack of interest in good music on the part of Atlantans.
No its not lack of interest in music, but an unfortunate location that accounts for the empty seats. Spivey is a fabulous small concert hall one of the best in the country - but I seldom attend because it is so difficult to find; even with directions carefully inscribed, I still lose my way.
If Spivey were on the north side of town, near a main traffic artery, people would be battling for seats. (Hint: we need just that!) I love their programs and would attend more often if only I were not so apprehensive about getting there.