CD Reviews: Two opera singers bring their dramatic gifts to the world of song

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10/19/2010CD Reviews: Two opera singers bring their dramatic gifts to the world of song

Toronto tenor Lawrence Wiliford and Austrian mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirschlager are a treat to watch and hear on an opera stage. Both have powerful yet lyric instruments. Both are excellent actors that burn with notable intensity. Both also love art song. They show how drama and intimacy of can complement each other on new albums. Neither artist is about pretty singing as a goal; instead they find the emotional kernel of each song and try to express it as clearly as possible.

Both artists have also found 20th century repertoire that we don't hear every day, yet rewards the careful listener. Both CDs deserve 4 stars out of 4:

LAWRENCE WILIFORD & JENNIFER SWARTZ
Divine Musick (ATMA Classique)
Anyone touched deeply by the power of the Canadian Opera Company's current production of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice owes it to themselves to give this disc a try.
Britten, whose heart was failing during the period that he wrote the opera, had a stroke following his heart surgery, which left him partially paralized from 1973 to his death in 1976. Before that, whenever he could, Britten would accompany his partner, tenor Peter Pears, on piano. After the stroke, Britten had to give up the piano. Instead of torturing himself even more by turning over the keyboard to someone else, the composer began writing for voice and harp. And because Britten was frail, his writing became even more spare.
Toronto tenor Lawrence Wiliford (who is next on stage in Opera Atelier's upcoming production of Handel's Acis and Galatea) has teamed up with Montreal Symphony Orchestra principal harp Jennifer Swartz in this gorgeously layered selection of late instrumental -- the Suite for Harp, commissioned in 1969) and vocal pieces -- six Folk Songs, A Birthday Hansel (commissioned by the Queen for her mother's 75th birthday), Five Songs from Harmonia Sacra and, the most powerful of all, the last of Britten's Canticle series, The Death of Saint Narcissus, a particularly sharp piece of poetry by T.S. Eliot.
Whether its a stroll through the old Ash Grove or something a bit weightier, Wiliford unfailingly strikes the right mood. Swartz's nimble fingers and heavenly touch are a bonus. The booklet includes all the lyrics. (For more information, as well as audio samples, visit the ATMA website, by clicking on the artists' names at the top.)

ANGELIKA KIRSCHLAGER
Sings Joseph Marx (CPO)
Because he came at the end of the great line of Austro-German composers of Lieder, Joseph Marx (1882-1964) is often treated as last and least. But his tonally adventurous, post-Romantic writing is fascinating. Often, the piano sounds like it has lost its bearings, as the accompaniment drifts away in unrelated key signatures, like an autumn leaf being carried on eddies of wind. But the wind is the vocal line, which knows exactly where it's going.
Most of the Lieder on this enchanting album -- 11 settings from the Italian Song Book not chosen by Hugo Wolf, eight sundry Lieder -- are from Marx's youth. The sublime Verlk?rtes Jahr (Illuminated Year) cycle is from the early 1930s (Marx, a busy educator, wrote little in his later years).
Once the ear adjusts to Marx's snaky tonalities, these songs begin to reveal the economy of means by which each poem is brought to musical life. Kirschlager glides over the material with the lightness of a butterfly -- but always finds a way to convey a deeper emotional message, as well. Anthony Spiri is a sensitive and evocative accompanist on the piano. The booklet includes all the texts, in translation. (For more information, you can link to Atelier Grigorian's website by clicking on Kirschlager's name, above.)

Posted by John Terauds at 08:30:21 AMin Canada, CD, Europe, Music, Voice

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Sound Mind:
A Classical Music Blog

John Terauds started at the Toronto Star as a freelance writer in 1988, and has been on staff since 1997. He began writing on classical music in 2001, and has been the full-time classical music critic since 2005.

He is also the organist and choir director at St. Peter's Anglican Church, a parish founded in 1863 in downtown Toronto.

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