If
ever there were a voice made for Strauss,
it's Deborah Voigt's. In a recital that spanned
an impressive range of song composers and
styles, four songs by Strauss were the undisputed
highlights, showing off the soprano's gleaming
sound and impetuous approach to greatest advantage.
Three of them were in the main program and,
for her first encore, "Freulingsfeier" was
a thrilling skyrocket of a performance, culminating
in ecstatic, ringing climaxes on the words
"Adonis, Adonis." The music and the style
are strongly reminiscent of Ariadne's love
music in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos,
a not-too-subtle jab at Covent Garden for
replacing her in this summer's production
of that opera with a slimmer soprano who could
fit into the cocktail dress costume.
Just
to make sure no one missed the point, she
added a few lines to her second encore, "Wagner
Roles," a piece written for her by the American
composer Ben Moore. In it, the singer laments
always being cast in Wagner operas, dropping
in whole phrases from Tristan und Isolde,
Tannhauser and, just for fun, a few
ho-jo-to-ho's. The protagonist wishes she
could sing something lighter, maybe something
by Johann Strauss, where the soprano gets
the guy. In the final phrases, in which she
resigns herself to her fach, she drops
in a line about "that thing with the little
black dress," and pointedly mentions Strauss
along with Wagner in the final line. The audience
erupted.
Unfortunately,
there were plenty of empty seats. At best
the hall, which seats 3,000-plus, was two-thirds
full. That would equal the attendance for
virtually this same program a week ago at
Carnegie Hall in New York. For what it's worth,
Dmitri Hvorostovsky nearly filled the cavernous
Davies Hall two weeks ago for his all-Russian
recital (although to judge by all the Russian
being spoken, that audience was heavily larded
with ex-patriots unaccustomed to classical
recital etiquette, talking during the music
and crackling food wrappers unmercifully).
This audience was here for one reason -- to
revel in a magnificent voice and shower love
on the woman who owns it.
Truth
be told, the first set of Schubert songs were
hard to love. Voigt excelled only in the extended
lines of "Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen."
In the other Schubert songs, which made little
use of her gleaming top voice, she lacked
the agility and turn-on-a-dime vocal color
changes to give the music its due.
But
then came the Strauss set. With this composer's
loving use of long-spun phrases that lie above
the staff, Voigt was in her element. The songs
came to life brilliantly, from the elegant
lines of "Ich trage meine Minne" to the nimble
romp of "Nichts" and the ecstatic climaxes
of "Befreit." Two Tchaikovsky songs were a
step back, emphasizing as they did her rich
lower register. Impressive, yes, but not her
best feature.
For
the second half of American songs, Voigt floated
on stage looking resplendent in an ice-blue
floor-length silky number trimmed in two layers
of maribou. The diva gown got a round of applause
and she twirled around to show it off. (In
retrospect, perhaps she was making another
statement: "See, I can look glamorous!")
In
a set of Charles Ives songs, she was especially
effective in conveying the naive simplicity
of "Down East" and "Two Little Flowers," lacking
the vocal agility to get the rapid-fire patter
of "Very Pleasant" and "The Circus Band,"
but hearty enough to extract the required
laughs. Four Ben Moore songs, settings of
well known poems by Joyce, Herrick ("Gather
ye rosebuds..."), Keats and Hardy, never quite
took off, more the fault of Moore's restrained
lyricism than any shortcomings in Voigt's
singing.
The
final few songs on the program, three by William
Bolcom and two by Stephen Sondheim, made good
use of Voigt's stage presence and ability
to act with the voice, projecting the text.
Of the Bolcom cabaret songs, only the rueful
"Toothbrush Time" really came off. The convoluted
poetry of the final Bolcom song, "George"
(which is very funny to read) got lost in
the live hall. Those songs need a more intimate
venue.
Sondheim's
"Losing My Mind," by contrast, made a big
impression. It was written for a big Broadway
musical, Follies, and it was a treat
to hear it sung by such a plush voice, which
Voigt reined in just enough to keep it from
sounding operatic. The final piece on the
program, "I Never Do Anything Twice," was
written for a Belgian actress named Régine
to sing in a throwaway scene in the 1976 film
"The Seven Percent Solution." It makes no
great demands on a voice, but Voigt showed
a flair for its louche comedy and care for
Sondheim's witty lyrics.
After
the Strauss and "Wagner Roles" encores, the
third go was a set of roof-raising ho-jo-to-ho's,
one hopes suggesting that Brünnhilde
might be in Voigt's future. She finished with
a couple of staples of the American musical
-- Jerome Kern's "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"
from Showboat, and Lerner & Loewe's
"I Could Have Danced All Night" from My
Fair Lady. There were more than a few
enthusiasts in the audience who wished the
singing couldn't have gone all night.
Harvey
Steiman
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