Chanticleer: Out of This World. September 17, 2010

This was the opening concert in San Francisco for Chanticleer's 33rd season. There are two new singers this year. Casey Breves is a soprano, and just graduated from Yale. I met him at the auditions back in February, and I saw him again in April, at Yale, soon after he had gotten the offer from Chanticleer. Mike Axtell is a new baritone/bass. I met him in 2009 at the "Chanticleer Summer Camp" (officially the Summer Choral Workshop at Sonoma State, where 80 singers get together with Chanticleer, arriving on a Wednesday and performing a concert on Sunday). Anyway, both new singers are excellent, as you might imagine.

The theme for the concert, Out of This World!, provided a convenient excuse to sing anything having to do with stars or heaven, which includes just about everything that Chanticleer is likely to sing. I was expecting a "difficult" concert, but when a concert starts with Palestrina (Mary is assumed into heaven), there's nothing to worry about.

I'd forgotten the music of Francisco Guerrero, so I was unprepared for the beauty of the motet Hail, Queen of Heaven. I really hope they record this piece.

I checked my iTunes collections, and I have two other Guerrero motets there, one of which is the beautiful Virgen sancta, which opens with a soprano solo. I have two recordings of it, one from Chanticleer, recorded in 1990, and one from Clerestory, recorded 19 years later. The soloist is the same in both: the always-wonderful Chris Fritzsche.

Next, they launched into four madrigals, beginning with a pair of Monteverdis: Sfogava con le stelle, a piece that I learned long ago, and Ecco mormorar l'onde. The third madrigal was Fuggi dolor by William Hawley, which I've heard them sing several times recently. The fourth was written by Mason Bates, a well-known local composer and DJ, awash in well-deserved accolades these days. It is part of his Sirens song cycle, commissioned by Chanticleer last year. (He had a larger piece in the second half of the program. More anon.) After Bates' madrigal, they sang Britten's Hymn to Saint Cecilia, a piece I also learned long ago, when I sang with the Pacific Master Chorale down in Orange County. The Britten is a strange and difficult piece. The chords change at the drop of a hat (what key are we in now?), and with notes in the extreme high and low ranges, it's sometimes difficult to know whether the singers are still in tune. The text is by Auden and wanders far afield of Cecilia, the patron saint of music. I liked it, but that's only because I learned it. I think it would be hard to hear this for the first time, even reading the words, and get much out of it. Example: "O law drummed out by hearts against the still / Long winter of our intellectual will." Um, right. Got it.

The first half concluded with a Schumann piece for double chorus and what may be Chanticleer's new signature piece, Mahler's Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. This is one of the Rückertlieder, arranged for chorus by Clytus Gottwald. It is a slow, luscious piece, with the richest of harmonies. It's very sad (roughly, I've had enough of the world). It's very difficult to sing well. Those rich sonorities come at a price: miss one little half step, or tuning, and we're off the rails. I've heard Chanticleer sing this piece many times. The first time was with Frederika von Stade as a soloist, accompanied, as it were, by Chanticleer. The original version was for solo and piano, but most people know it in the arrangement for soloist and orchestra. It was a signature piece for Janet Baker. Von Stade's performance was wonderful, and I remember that before she took her bow, she acknowledged the singers, particularly the sopranos, who were singing notes far above hers. Such a gracious lady.

The second half of the concert took a more literal view of being out of this world, starting with Kirke Mechem's Island in Space, which starts and ends with Dona nobis pacem, surrounding a text by an astronaut, Russell Schweichart, and another, far less interesting text, by Archibald Macleish. Schweichart observes that from his viewpoint aboard Apollo 9, there are no borders on the Earth, just a small, beautiful planet. The best line: "You realize that on that small spot is everything that means anything to you: all history, all poetry, all music, all art, death, birth, love, tears, all games, all joy -- all on that small spot."

Then we heard a large-scale piece by Mason Bates, Observer in the Magellanic Cloud. This was, in some ways, the centerpiece for the concert. The "observer" of the title is not a person but a satellite that sees, from a zillion miles away, Maori tribesmen, who are chanting to the satellite's own galaxy. The piece starts with electronic beeping, the sound of the satellite, which sets the pulse for the piece. The singing alternates between the satellite and the Maori tribesmen. In the middle, there's a tribal "dance," where the guys walk around in a circle. Shades of A Village Wedding. Let's just say that dance is not their forte. Indeed, walking is not their forte.

 I liked the Bates piece very much, and it was a polished performance, although the singers told me that it was fiendishly difficult to learn. They spent about 16 hours rehearsing it before recording it earlier this summer.

The last section of the concert had four "popular" pieces, starting with Steve Barnett's arrangment of a Harold Arlen song, Out of this world, followed by Gene Puerling's arrangement of Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars, both of which Chanticleer has performed before. Then came the surprise: a piece billed as "indie rock." It was Cells Planets by Erika Lloyd, whose original performance with her group, Little Grey Girlfriend, you can hear on the Web. I listened to that, and it reminded me of Joni Mitchell, not my favorite stuff. But this arrangement, by Vince Peterson, was completely different. The backup band was replaced by voices, obviously, and the solo was given to the new soprano, Casey Breves, who has a perfect pop sound (albeit a couple of octaves up). He was clearly in his element, and I can just imagine that he must have been in this situation many times: a soloist surrounded by a chorus of really good male singers, namely, the Whiffenpoofs, Yale's most famous all-male singing group, and now the eleven other singers of Chanticleer. It was a star turn, and it brought the house down. The last piece, called Change the World, featured tenor Ben Jones. I don't remember hearing him sing a solo before. He has a very nice voice, perhaps a little too sotto voce for the situation, especially following bravura Breves, and the song is nothing to write home about, but I hope we get to hear more of Ben. In his pre-Chanticleer life, Ben was a featured singer in Beach Blanket Babylon, so he, too, should be comfortable in a solo spot.

There was an encore, of course: Joe Jennings' arrangement of Walk in Jerusalem. Matt Curtis had the first solo, but Brian Hinman took all the others -- by storm. Brian has a trumpet of a voice, loud when he needs it, but always clear and distinct, even in quiet passages. He has a long, plaintive solo at the beginning of Michael McGlynn's Agnus Dei, from two years ago, and that's one of my favorite bits from all their recordings. The piece itself is way too long; it should stop about one minute after the solo is done. It gets lost in pretty chords, alas, after the edgy beginning. Brian's solo is stunning because he brings out a sadness in the words that I had not understood before: Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. But think of it this way: O God, I'm so sorry for making such a mess of my life. Have mercy on me.

A second encore was required for this eager Friday-night audience, and we got Straight Street, with little solos from Eric Alatorre and Cortez Mitchell, about three octaves apart.

I went back and heard the Sunday performance. Some years ago, when I lived in the South Bay, I decided that I would never see another Chanticleer concert just once. They usually do two Bay Area performances, so it wasn't difficult to hear them twice. When I moved to San Francisco two years ago, I stopped going to their South Bay performances, so I did hear some concerts only once, but I've returned to my senses. The reason I like hearing it twice is that they may sing something that is unfamiliar, not recorded (by them, at least), and unlikely to show up at another local concert, anytime soon. That first Mahler performance, with von Stade, echoed in my head for, what?, six years until they finally started doing it again, sans soloist. The Guerrero piece in this program may vanish, too, so it was good to catch it a second time. At the Sunday performance, they replaced the two Monteverdi madrigals with a pair by Marenzio, and we got to hear a different quartet sing them, including the new baritone, Mike Axtell.

All in all, I thought this was an auspicious beginning for the 33rd season. Sometimes the opening concert is a little rocky, especially when there are new singers on board. But not this time. This group is solid. Go hear them. Twice, even.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival, August 10-14, 2010

Every year, I go with friends to see plays at the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. There are two performances a day, a matinee at 1:30 pm and an evening performance at 8 pm. There are three theaters, one of which, the outdoor Elizabethan stage, has performances only in the evening. The cast and the audience would melt at a matinee; it can get very hot here in the summer.

About half the plays are by Shakespeare. Some of the rest are world premieres. Some of those will probably not be seen again. Some, like the drawing-room comedies, are hardy perennials.

In any given week, there are usually 9 plays on the boards. We arrive on Tuesday afternoon, after a 6-hour drive from San Francisco, and we see 8 plays, back to back, which takes us through the Saturday matinee. We have a big blowout dinner on Saturday night and then drive back on Sunday.

Since we can't see all 9 plays, we have to choose which one to skip. That's often hard, and sometimes we make the wrong choice. Two summers ago, we chose Our Town at the Elizabethan Theater instead of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the larger indoor theater, the Bowmer Theater. It was the wrong choice because we all disliked Our Town, and seriously wondered why this play is ever done at all. And we heard that Midsummer was fabulous. I came back in October, on a day where I could see my favorite Shakespeare play from that summer, Coriolanus, at a matinee, and Midsummer in the evening. It was indeed fabulous, literally and figuratively.

Here are notes on the plays we saw this summer (written as the week went on).

Tuesday night:
Henry IV, Part 1 (or as I like to say, Henry 4.1, to be followed by 4.2 and 5.0). I liked this play; my friends mostly didn't. With rare exception, the acting is always outstanding here, but sometimes the production, or direction, or even the play itself, leave something to be desired. John Tufts plays Prince  Henry (to become 5.0), or Hal as he is called here. In Act I, he's the prodigal son, hanging out with low-lifes, indeed, some truly revolting low-lifes, much to the chagrin of his father (4.1). I like Tufts, a CMU graduate. For one thing, he's tall, dark, and handsome (well, that's three things), and that helps but it's not nearly enough to get you lead roles here. While he often plays leads in some plays, he, like everyone else, plays bit parts in other plays. I first remember his as Romeo at the Elizabethan, which Christine Albright as Juliet. Both talented young actors, they made the young lovers seem entirely credible, and the bedroom scene was steamy indeed. He played one forest Fairies in that fabulous performance I returned to see. The production was done in 80's disco version, complete with singing, and an incredibly enthusiatic audience, decades younger, on average, than the crowd that shows up in August.

Wednesday matinee:
Hamlet. The title role is played by Don Donohue, who is a brilliant actor and perhaps the most popular actor in Ashland. The performance begins while the audience is still noisily filing in, with a scene just after the funeral of Hamlet's father: a casket, many rows of chairs, and only one person left: Hamlet. As the other chairs are all put away, only one is left. Then Hamlet leaves, the lights dim, and the play begins. This is done in modern dress; Hamlet wears a jacket, a skinny tie, and sunglasses.

The play-proper begins on the walls of the castle. The guards are in camouflage, with lights attached to their automatic weaons. There are security cameras on the walls, blinking, turning, producing a Big Brother effect. The Ghost of Hamlet's father is barely visible in a flickering lighting effect, but he gradually becomes more corporeal. The one aspect of this production that I disliked was the use of Howie Seago, an actor who is deaf, as the Ghost. He and his family communicate using American Sign Language. In fact, the family use ASL even when talking to each about the dead king. In his conversations with the Ghost, Hamlet speaks most of the Ghost's lines, translating for us. But he doesn't translate everything, and there are long sections where they are conversing, but we, the audience, are left wondering what they're talking about. For me, this derails the action of the play, the same way it would have if the Ghost had been delivering his lines in, say, Danish. I think this choice is hyper-politically correct, and they've done this in other plays, again with Mr. Seago. The worst was in Our Town last year, where everything stopped dead when Seago had lines to deliver.

But that was the only failing in an otherwise terrific performance. The fatuous king, his queen (whose motivation seemed unclear here), and a terrific trio of Polonius and his kids. His famous lecture to them before Laertes goes back to college ("Neither a borrower nor a lender be...") was moving and funny. Just before Laertes can escape, his loquatious father has yet one more thing to say. His words of advice are well known to the kids; they recite it with him in perfect teenage exasperation. Richard Elmore, who has "bluster" down pat, has found a perfect role in Polonius. More surprising was Susannah Flood as Ophelia: energetic, bright, and lots of fun, unlike your typical spaced-out depressive, so that when she does her mad scene, standing on chairs, removing bits of clothing, we are as astonished as the family.

Hamlet has all the best lines, of course. Donohue makes the most of the wit and sarcasm. I'd forgotten how funny this part of the play can be, with barbs and puns a-flying. And no one can deliver those lines better than Donohue. The physical part of his acting is also flawless and inspiring at the same time. Although this portrayal is unlike any I'd seen before, it seemed so natural that I can't imagine it being in any other way. I'd seen Hamlet done here years ago, and all I remember was that it seemed interminable and I couldn't wait for it to end. To be fair, that performace was in the outdoor theater, and they may have not cut as much, if any, from the script as they did here (two small scenes, I heard); also, I may have been cold. This Hamlet was in the chronically over-air-conditioned but otherwise comfortable Bowmer Theater. (In the sweltering heat of Ashland in August, you see crowds in shorts, T-shirts, and sandals, but many of them are carrying coats that they will don for the theaters.)

I came up to Ashland back in February and saw this Hamlet (you can't see this production too many times), Pride and Prejudice (which I saw again this time), and A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which Act II is the long dialog between Brick and Big Daddy. The scenes in Brick and Maggy's bedroom, especially the opening where Brick starts out in the shower, may have been the most visually arresting, but it was the argument of Act II that made this piece truly memorable. Two actors, Danforth Cummins as the hunky, broken son, and Michael Winters as the angry, blustery father who loves him, made you forget the fancy set. It's for moments like this, and almost any scene with Dan Donohue, that we come to Ashland, year after year.

(Here's the rest of the schedule. I hope to have time to add comments about these, too.)


Wednesday night, at the Elizabethan Theater:
The Merchant of Venice.

Thursday matinee, at the New Theater.
Ruined.

Thursday evening, at the Bowmer Theater:
Throne of Blood.

Friday matinee, at the Bowmer.
Pride and Prejudice.

Friday evening, at the Bowmer:
She Loves Me (a musical).

Saturday matinee, at the New Theater:
American Night.