Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Recently, a mini-debate fired up over at the esteemable Lisa Hirsch’s Iron Tongue of Midnight about the widely varying published opinions on Susan Graham’s recent recital appearance in Berkeley. Lisa, Joshua Kosman, John Marcher and others all had weighed in on relative strengths and weaknesses of the show, part of her current U.S. tour, which will soon reach Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. But lucky for the debaters (and you dear reader), Ms. Graham and her accompanist Malcolm Martineau graced the brand new (and as of yet neither donor nor major corporation monikered) Valley Performing Arts Center on the campus of CSUN, on Wednesday, allowing me to clarify things for them by providing the correct opinions about the evening. So let the healing begin…

To start with, Graham arrived in full-on mid-Century Hollywood glamour mode in a floor length plain white gown with plunging neckline and sparkly jewelry to match. I don’t know if Fred Leighton loans out to opera recitals, but they really ought to seize the kind of moment Ms. Graham could deliver. Overall, she was in splendid voice for the evening. She was certainly stronger and more assured than I recall in her last few fully-staged appearances (the Met’s last run of Iphigénie en Tauride and SFO’s revival of Xerxes). To be fair, in Northridge she wasn’t bothered with some overbearing and dull stage-direction to work around and she bloomed when left to her own devices dramatically. Someone should really be mounting more new productions for her.

The program started by playing to her strong suits with Purcell’s “The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation” and Berlioz’ La Mort d’Ophélie. Her voice still holds up amazingly well in Baroque material and she delivered moments of Biblical warmth and clarity in both pieces. Her French is always flawless and she is a natural for Berlioz as well. These were followed by a collection of six different songs from as may different composers setting poetic scenes from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. Most interesting were three different settings of “Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen blüh'n” the first from Liszt that occurred half was through the set, a more comic twist from Duparc, and finally a strikingly more brutal and organic version from Hugo Wolf that demonstrated exactly what a difference a Wagner makes. Graham’s forceful cries of “Dahin!” in the final stanza were absolutely chilling.

Upon returning from the break, Graham switched gears by singing about “bad girls” in contrast to the romantic heroines of the first half as she announced from the stage. Now in black sequins and red lights, she sunk her teeth into some very different material. Sadly, some of this material let her down. First was Joseph Horovitz’s 1970 setting of Lady Macbeth’s dialog in a dramatic scene, Lady Macbeth. This came off as more recitative than actual music and was hugely disappointing in its lack of musical color. Also how these disembodied passages build on one another wasn’t clear. Graham made the most of it with her expressive acting, but there was so little musical meat on the bone everyone was soon starving. Poulenc’s witty Fiançailles pour rire came afterward and was delivered with a knowing smile and more lovely vocalism. Graham concluded the evening with a series of “bad girl” songs from Cole Porter and Sondheim including Ben Moore’s now familiar composition for her “Sexy Lady,” which lampoons her own image and place as a mezzo-soprano in the opera world. These songs do show off Graham’s incredible winning personality – one of the reasons that fans like me love her. But to be honest, even by conventional recital standards these days, it felt like rather a soft landing given how good the material in the first half of the evening sounded. There’s letting your hair down, and then there’s putting it up in curlers if you get my drift. Still I’d be thrilled to see her name on a season announcement for L.A. Opera or really anything out here in California, and this recital reminded me why that is.

Labels: Susan Graham, Valley Performing Arts Center

Southern California was one of the many regions on the Mariinsky Orchestra’s current tour of the United States with their long-time music director Valery Gergiev. But, of course, Southern California always manages to put its own unique decentralized stamp on things so the three programs offered on this tour promoting the Mariinsky’s latest release of Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, and 6 involved performances in two different locations over 2 hours apart by car spread over 6 days. Plus, a three-day trip to the bay area was sandwiched in between the first and second programs and, unlike other cities on the tour, the local concert stops did not include performances of either Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1 or No. 6. But no matter. The Tchaikovsky they delivered was spectacular and thrilling, and everything else provided plenty of interesting listening.

I missed out on the first show of the Southern California set, which was sponsored by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County last Thursday, while I was in New York. The Philharmonic Society has enjoyed a close relationship with the Mariinsky Orchestra over the last few years and the orchestra played a big role in the inauguration of the Segerstrom Concert Hall in 2006. So it's a special occasion when Gergiev and his players return there and the second program on Monday, which included Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies No. 3 and No. 4, showed off how well things have gone for the hall in the last five years. It was wonder of a program and it sounded great in the space. American audiences in particular may be prone to overlook Tchaikovsky’s Russian heritage. His romantic works are so omnipresent that their familiarity breeds a certain contempt at times among some classical music fans. But if there is any orchestra in the world that can put the Russia back in Tchaikovsky, it’s the Mariinsky players, and Gergiev led these two symphonies in a performance unlike just about any other you’re likely to hear. The rough-hewn, sometimes severe take on even the smallest details imbues the symphonies with an almost folk music-like air. The slow movements have a mournfulness that one might not always think of in these very pretty pieces of music as well. It wasn’t technically flawless playing, but it was undoubtedly exciting. Even the encore from The Nutcrakcer seemed fresh and surprising that evening. The orchestra is not without finesse, and there was an assuredness in these performances that made even the rougher edges seem inspiring.

The following evening, Gergiev and his orchestra traveled to the other side of downtown Los Angeles to play a role in the opening of another brand new venue, The Valley Performing Arts Center on the campus of Cal State Northridge. It was my first visit to the very modern looking facility, which is pleasing to look at if a little cold on the outside. The “Great Hall” auditorium of the facility is filled with curving wood panels and grey metal accents. And in a parallel to those early shows at the then new Segerstrom Hall, the acoustic issues on Tuesday's VPAC show weren't quite sorted out yet. The Mariinsky Orchestra program was a thoughtful one that provided a 20th Century antidote to the Tchaikovsky show of the previous evenings. Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite started things off with a sound and perspective that was more mystical than Disney-esque. This piece can come off like movie-trailer music if you aren’t careful, and the Mariinsky Orchestra gave it a sometimes jarring twist that made it clear it wasn’t advertising anything. Next was Prokofiev’s demanding Piano Concerto No. 3 with soloist Alexander Toradze. It’s a furious flight of music, and here the acoustics got the better of everyone. The piano, at the foot of the stage was largely inaudible over the orchestra from where I sat in the loge and in many other places in the hall from reports I heard. Toradze struggled to rise above the orchestra even in the quietest parts. The sound could be cacophonous and harsh in the auditorium as well which continued into the evening's final offering, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1. This is a tough and rather daring early work from a composer with the opposite problem from Tchaikovsky- he's almost always talked about in terms of his relationship with his homeland and the Soviet Union. And like much of his work, Shostakovich fills this symphony with numerous folk themes as well as its looming, dark middle movements. Despite the harshness of the sound though, it was still a fascinating performance with its darker, edgier attitude. And so life goes on in Los Angeles and its environs as well all piled back into our cars afterwards, some for a long drive home. The city is filled with amazing things, it's just a rarity when they are packaged close together.

Labels: Philharmonic Society OC, Valley Performing Arts Center