Wagner, Strauss, Marx, John Carter, Arlen and  others: Christine Brewer, soprano, Craig Rutenberg, piano Herbst Hall, San Francisco, 1.03.2007 (HS)

 

The American soprano Christine Brewer has been making quite a name for herself in big-voiced soprano roles. Later this spring she's singing Isolde in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's semi-staged Tristan project conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and directed by Peter Sellars. Scaling her big voice down to recital proportions, she traversed a wide range of music in a winning recital Thursday in San Francisco.

 

Opening with Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, she made the best impression in the slower, quieter songs. Later, in a set of jazz-inflected Harold Arlen songs, her down-home all-American approach overcame the occasional burst of operatic bluster. And she brought down the house with a hilarious performance of "Review," a marvelous ly witty setting by the neglected American song composer Celius Dougherty of a composite recital critique.

 

Despite Brewer's laudable attention to stylistic detail, she occasionally missed the last layer of nuance that separates great recitalists from the rest. But her likable personality and pure, powerful sound provided plenty of compensation.

 

The Wesendonck Lieder find Wagner mostly in a reflective mood. Except for an outburst at the start of "Stehe still!" (which found Brewer at her most blustery), most of the music is quiet and Brewer responded with real delicacy. "Im Treibhaus" and the final "Träume" created just the right suspension of time.

 

Even better was the other set of song on the first half, two by Richard Strauss and two by Joseph Marx. Brewer's big but fluid sound wraps itself beautifully around Strauss' phrases in "Wiegenlied" and "Befreit." The singer's seamless legato and impressive range, from well below the staff to flights above it, served the songs well. Marx, who was a favorite song composer in Vienna in the first half of the 20th century, wrote in a conservative idiom, much like Strauss, so the juxtaposition worked.

 

The second half, all in English, started with John Carter's Oratorio, 1968 settings of four spirituals from African-American culture. It is a measure of how far we have come racially that a white singer can sing "black" music without any tsk-tsking, and do the music justice. "Let Us Break Bread Together" was especially moving, done with respect for the idiom without overdoing it.

 

Pianist Craig Rutenberg seemed equally at home in this music as he did in Wagner and Strauss, and again in the Arlen set that followed. He struck the right balance of informality and precision for three songs from the Broadway show St. Louis Woman. Brewer sang "I Had Myself a True Love" with a tender spirit of resignation and a sense of appreciation for what was. "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "I Wonder What Became of Me" had some nice moments, too.

 

Kirsten Flagstad often sang the four songs in the final set, Brewer told the audience, to conclude her recitals on tour in the United States in the 1950s. Pleasant as the songs by A. Walter Kramer, Samuel Barber, Mildred Lund Tyson and Edwin McArthur are, they paled after the soul-stirring ones that came before.

 

Brewer's first encore, a lovely arrangement by Hall Johnson of the spiritual "A City Called Heaven," raised the stakes considerably. Again, such respectful and idiomatic singing in this music is rare.

 

The second and final encore, "Review," gave Brewer a chance to mimic bad singing as the review ticks off the poor singer's defects. It had voice lovers doubled over, and was a great way to finish off the evening.

 

(The soprano is scheduled to appear in recital at Wigmore Hall, London, March 8, presumably with a similar program, this time in partners with pianist Roger Vignoles.)

 

 

Harvey Steiman