While preparing this aria for a concert next month, I was reflecting on the idea of freedom. We all, in some way or another, long for freedom—from a person, situation, or even our own thoughts. In “Stridono lassù,” Nedda is desperate to escape her oppressive situation and fly like the birds.
Read MoreAs a young American soprano studying opera in the early 2000s, Renée Fleming was my hero. Who am I kidding, she still is. She has the most beautiful tone quality, consummate technique, and an air of ease that makes the whole thing seem effortless. Of course now, as a working singer, I know that making it look effortless takes years of hard work and dedication.
Read MoreI sang very briefly with a jazz quartet in college, and while I love jazz and enjoy the challenge of improvisation, I’ve always been terrified of scat. When our group decided to jam on “All of Me,” I relied my opera singer skill of memorization to recall the amazing rendition by Sarah Vaughan.
Read More“Le spectre de la rose” from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights) is both delicate and grand, one of those songs that really sticks with you. The ghost of a rose, plucked and worn by a woman at a ball, appears at her bedside. The rose fills her room with its intoxicating scent, whispering words of love and reassurance.
Read MoreSteve brought “Soneto a Córdoba” to me as a possibility for our Lorca program (since de Falla was one of Lorca’s mentors), and despite never having been, I was instantly transported to southern Spain. This song is an ode to Córdoba, a town in Andalusia where the poet Luis de Góngora lived and died.
Read MoreFederico Lorca struggled with his sexuality for much of his short life. No wonder. It was the inevitable fate of a passionate, uninhibited, demonstrative gay man living in a repressive, homophobic culture. While he had deep emotional attachments to a number of women, his heart was susceptible only to other men.
Read MoreIn 1956, two great Catalan composers, Federico Mompou and Xavier Montsalvatge, collaborated on a project for Barcelona’s Liceu Theater. They wanted to make a ballet adaptation of a Lorca play, The Love of Don Peremplín and Belisa in the Garden. Though not considered one of Lorca’s theatrical masterpieces, it enjoyed some success in its day. Don Peremplín went on […]
Read MoreI faced a quandary when I was programming the April 24 Lorca concert. Though I try to avoid presenting songs I’ve done in recent concerts, I couldn’t find many suitable examples of cante jondo—the “deep song” of Andalusia that Lorca venerated. He disdained the word “flamenco,” which he called the “tourist version” of cante jondo. But for an American listener the two terms are roughly equivalent, especially in this day and age. Recordings of cante jondo are of course in plentiful supply. What’s almost impossible is finding songs in this style appropriate for the recital stage and classically trained singers.
Read MoreIn every NYFOS program I like to have a specialty number, something completely on-topic but completely unexpected. I despaired of having such a song for the April 24th Lorca concert until Michael Barrett said, “Oh, you should contact my cousin Jonathan Mayhew. He’s a big Lorca guy—he’s already written one book about him and is now working on another about songs written to Lorca’s poems.” A flurry of emails followed, along with a slew of suggestions for our concert.
Read MoreAs I prepare for the April 24 concert, I have become increasingly immersed in the life and poetry of Federico García Lorca. The more I know about this great Spanish writer the more astonishing I find him. His neatly bound volumes of poetry and his famous stage works don’t give a true picture of his chaotic creativity, his unique mix of sophistication and naivety, his long-frustrated sensuality, and his complex heart.
Read More