American soprano Christine Brewer returns to the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage in a recital of songs by a diverse lineup of composers, Tuesday, June 1, at 8 p.m. She is joined by pianist Craig Rutenberg making his Walt Disney Concert Hall debut. The Colburn Celebrity Series event is the final series performance of the LA Phil's 2009/10 season.
The recital begins with the aria "Divinités du Styx" from the opera Alceste, which was the second collaboration between
Christoph Willibald Gluck and Italian poet/librettist Ranieri da Calzabigi. As with their first collaboration - Orfeo ed Euridice - Alceste is considered a "reform opera" and embodies many of the tenets of Enlightenment thought, including the creation of characters for whom the audience can have sympathy and compassion. The passionate aria takes place at the end of the first act in which Queen Alceste determines to sacrifice herself to save her husband's life.
Following in the program is
Richard Wagner's song cycle Wesendonck Lieder, written while the composer was in exile in Zurich. The intense relationship that developed between Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of his benefactor, led to her authorship of five passionate poems - "Der Engel" (The Angel), "Stehe still" (Stand still), "Im Treibhaus" (In the Greenhouse), "Schmerzen" (Sorrows), and "Träume" (Dreams) - which Wagner set for voice and piano.
The next songs come from Austrian composer Joseph Marx, a romantic who followed in the footsteps of his predecessors
Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf. "Selige Nacht" is a setting of a poem by Otto Erich Hartleben, and "Hat dich die Liebe berührt" is another love song on a poem by
Paul Heyse.
Following the Marx songs - after intermission - are the Cabaret Songs by
Benjamin Britten. Despite Britten's contentious relationship with poet
W.H. Auden, the two were able to produce compelling works including this set of four songs - "Calypso," "Johnny," "Tell me the truth about love," and "Funeral Blues" - the texts of which are a product of the times Auden enjoyed in the early 1930s cabaret nightlife of Berlin.
The program continues with three arrangements; the first, "Ye Banks and Braes," arranged by Roger Quilter, is based on a text by
Robert Burns set to a melody by
Charles Miller in 1788; next is "The Salley Gardens," a poem by
W.B. Yeats arranged by Britten and published in 1943; and "The Leprechaun" arranged by Herbert Hughes concludes the set.
The program closes with Echoes of Nightingales, featuring Ms. Brewer paying tribute to predecessors such as
Helen Traubel, Kirsten Flagstad,
Eileen Farrell and
Eleanor Steber. The works, by composers Sidney Homer, Edwin MacArthur, Paul Sargent, Frank Bridge, Idabelle Firestone and Frank LaForge, form a compilation of songs with which those songstresses were associated and, with the exception of Bridge's work, represent American song writing in the first half of the 20th century.
Christine Brewer last performed at
Walt Disney Concert Hall in November of 2008, in a program led by Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. The Sunday Times (London) says of her, "The finest singing I heard last week came from the lustrous throat of the American soprano Christine Brewer, who pinned us all to our seats ...she was simply devastating in the spiritual arrangements, singing with all her heart and soul and the sultriest vocal allure of any U.S. soprano since the great African-American diva
Leontyne Price..."
Pianist Craig Rutenberg, "whose playing ranged from sterling directness to expansive beauty," (San Francisco Chronicle) has collaborated with many of the world's greatest vocalists and is recognized as one of the most distinguished accompanists on the stage today.
The performance concludes the 2009/10 Colburn Celebrity recitals, which present virtuoso performances by world-renowned artists.
For full artists' biographies, please visit:
http://www.laphil.com.
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