San Antonio Symphony
Dawn Upshaw in a performance to cherish
May 23, 2010Even if the soprano Dawn Upshaw were not equipped with a ravishing, infinitely flexible instrument, her musical curiosity and intelligence would put her securely in the top shelf of American singers.
In her first appearance with the San Antonio Symphony, May 21 in the Majestic Theater, Upshaw offered a generous glimpse of her wide artistic (and vocal) range in two very different sets.
She opened in territory that was at once familiar and new: “She Was Here” comprises four songs of loss by Franz Schubert with new orchestral backdrops by the Argentine-American composer Osvaldo Golijov. (Upshaw sang in the premiere of the work with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra two years ago.)
Golijov’s music is often a heady stew made from Argentine, Yiddish and Western European classical traditions. The emphasis in his score for “She Was Here” is on European Romanticism as it was influenced by Schubert -- Mahlerian colors are prominent -- with a shimmering gloss of Modernist sonics. The new orchestral material complements Schubert’s vocal lines in a remarkable way, deepening and expanding their emotive power and making them seem surprisingly contemporary.
Upshaw’s performance was lovely, especially in the beautifully floated sustained notes of “Wandrers Nachtlied” and in the velvety warmth she brought to “Nacht und Träume.”
She closed the evening with seven of Joseph Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne,” luxuriously orchestrated settings of folk songs from his native region in the Occitan language, a close relative of Catalan. Upshaw has recorded “Songs of the Auvergne” in its entirety -- some three-dozen songs -- with the Lyon orchestra under Kent Nagano. The seven she chose for this program included several of the most familiar items. In “Baïlèro,” Upshaw’s magnificent sustained notes floated like a cloud above the Auvergne’s wooded hills. Most memorable, however, were the truthfulness and specificity of her characterizations throughout. An individual personality spoke through each of the songs, thanks to Upshaw’s subtle control of vocal color, rhythm and inflection. This was a performance to cherish.
Guest conductor Cliff Colnot did a reasonably good job with the atmospherics of the Canteloube and Golijov scores, but the rest of the concert was a leaden dud. Colnot turned Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 into a draggy mass of homogenized gloop, and he drained Igor Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” Suite of all rhythmic snap and energy. Well, almost all: The double-bass section, not about to let a rare star turn sink into the general ennui, commandeered the Vivo section to give it a strong dose of raucous, rustic punch.
Mike
Greenberg
