A is for Apple as in Big Apple as in one of the greatest cities in the world. The sheer diversity of what is offered all year round in the arts could be overwhelming, unless you revel in a veritable buffet of every kind of every sample to satisfy every taste. Sounds effusive, but it's true.
B is for Blier as in Steven Blier as in the co-founder and artistic director of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS). He is a genius in bringing together programs of astonishing variety that are both simple and complex, both musically and vocally. Blier made colorful musical observations in between sections of the program. This provided a greater depth of understanding, making the experience of attending a NYFOS event that much more rich. If more brilliant musicians like Blier, who is also a faculty member at Juilliard, would share their knowledge, then funding for the arts could be in greater abundance. He is accessible, warm and inclusive. The feeling of the evening was more like a musicale in someone's home rather than a recital in Merkin Concert Hall. This warmth excites curiosity and the desire to learn more.
C is for Contemplation as in, what better way to spend a late Spring evening than in contemplation of the joys of bodies of water? While Blier contends he had some difficulty initially in making some selections, he dove into his heritage and that of his gifted vocalists to guide the journey.
On May 19 and 21, NYFOS presented its final offering of the season, "The Welcome Shore." Featuring, Michelle Areyzaga in soprano roles, Sasha Cooke in mezzo-soprano and Philip Cutlip in baritone, with Steven Blier at the piano and Rupert Boyd on guitar, the evening was thus A-B-C's worthy in its delight.
Let's work into the D as in Delightful as in de-light of the summer is nearly upon us. Beginning with Swedish composer Wilhelm Steinhammar, the ensemble provided an opening, as the song, "Det far ett skepp," depicts setting off on a voyage and three voices interact, as the young man sets out describing how women and the sea do not mix well for sailors. Long has there been a superstition that women were bad luck at sea and this is playfully referred to as, sea or land, women can affect a man's fortune. It is also a nice contrast musically with Cutlip's solo on "Melodi," also by Stenhammar. The use of the language of some of the earliest mariners is attention getting-I don't hear much Swedish in my daily life, do you? This and the music, both evocative, hold one's imagination.
My personal favorite work of the evening came early in the first half. The blending of Areyzaga and Cooke's voices was literally thrilling, causing a flutter in that place near the top of where I imagine my heart to be. Certain singers, male or female, can cause that flutter with particularly well-executed harmonies. While the composer plays a part, songs are meant to be sung, and when they are sung so well, so smoothly, and with so much feeling, I find that, even as I write this, I'm feeling it again. "In the Garden, Near the Ford," by our familiar friend Tchaikovsky, is the story of a young girl spurned by the man she favors. The two female voices intertwining have the sweetness of morning glories. This alone would have made the concert worth attending.
"Venice at Night," by Taneyev and Rachmaninoff's "The Storm," sung respectively by Cooke and Areyzaga, were a study in contrasts. The smooth evocation of an evening spent contemplating the reverse images reflected in still dark waters after the bustle of the day, then the drama of someone watching a beautiful and troubled maiden contemplating roiling waters, made for a tasty juxtaposition.
A path was threaded through Edward Elgar's "Sea Pictures," knowingly by Cooke, to Schubert's "Auf Dem See," where Areyzaga liltingly limned an aquatic exercise in concentration. In Schubert's "Der Zwerge," Cutlip's dramatic and dark solo finish to the evening's first half, a servant and the Queen he loves take a very final voyage. Has there been anything more tragic?
Fortunately, after intermission, our tour of beaches brings us to "Mananita de San Juan." This lyric piece, paired with "Olas Gigantes," was another study in contrasts by Areyzaga. First, she took us to a St. John's day morn and a close encounter with a dove, which then turned to an entreaty of love. Next, we were shown the more serious aftermath of love's departure in the thundering and bitter waves of the ocean. Blier's selections for each of his singers treated us to lavish displays of individual talents in their fullness of range, timbre and dynamics. In this case D was for Delicious!
Areyzaga continued with Reynaldo Hahn's "La barcheta," from the cycle of songs he wrote when he and Marcel Proust first fell in love. The music and lyrics evoked the feeling of a special night, when a couple may feel privately entertained by all that's around them.
Cutlip returned with "April," Juan Lamote de Grignon's setting of Apel·les Mestres' romance. You can feel the sunlight and the sweet recollection flowing through the line, the fond recollection of the beginnings of love. And where, indeed, does the time go when spent such. This selection segued into Xavier Montsalvatge's "Love Song," a paean to the beloved and the desire to provide whatever is desired by one's love. As he finished his set with "The Cabin Boy's Song," we could feel the full vigor of a young man who is bursting with joie de vivre at being with friends, the joy of physical labor, when it reinforces your feeling of strength and the sweetness of knowing love will be found in every port of call.
The final section of the program contained the piece that vied with the earlier Tchaikovsky for my favorite of the evening. Pauline Viardot's "Havanaise" is a paella of Spanish and French influences with an apparent soupçon of Italian flavoring. Areyzaga and Cooke combined in enchantment, as their voices intertwined like Renaissance scrollwork on an old building. The song's Latin flavor, with French sensibility and some Italian figures, left me wanting more, as any good outing will do. Cooke, especially, is someone to watch. Viardot, herself a legendary mezzo, wrote a wonderful toothsome line.
"Marechiare," Francesco Paolo Tosti's setting of the Salvatore di Giacomo poem, brought Cutlip's Cyrano moment of sorts, where he sang of bringing a guitar with him, but actually brought both guitar and guitarist Boyd. The beauty of "Marechiare" is such that, in the moonlight, "even the fish tremble with love," and such also was the beauty of the performance.
There are lessons everywhere in everything we experience, and rarely is it so bald and beautiful as in "maggie and millie and mollie and may," the John Musto setting of e.e. cummings' poem. Each young woman finds something on the beach that is very telling about how she views the world. Or as cummings aptly says, "for whenever we lose (like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea."
Driving that lesson home in a grand slam was the ensemble's performance of the Noel Coward gem "A Bar on the Piccolo Marina, where we saw a small olio inter-acted by all, with Cooke playing the wayward Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster. Were these denizens 70 years ago more clever than we? Perhaps. The current generation, whoever they are, feel they have the lock on sexuality and expression, but the world around will always celebrate the coming out party of a woman of any age.
My theatre companion and I strolled off into the coolness of a late Spring evening, thoughts spinning with all we'd seen and heard. Typically not a fan of classical vocal music, she revised her earlier words to say that sitting through an opera (like "Turandot" or the recent "Ring" Cycle) were not her cuppa, but there was much to enjoy in NYFOS' finale. An evening like this is always programmed as it is with particular purpose, yet Steven Blier, in making his genius as transparent as it is warmly manifest, enfolds the listener in the arms of great and varied music that is beyond the conventional. NYFOS will celebrate for many years to come and we need to experience this with them.
NYFOS new season begins in October, after the Summer hiatus. Contact the company for subscription information at Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center via telephone at 212/501-3330 or order online at www.kaufman-center.org. You may visit www.nyfos.org for more information about the organization and its fine works.
