Issue #95Redmon, Dailey & Woodward Though Mr. Dailey is building a successful career in California where he is Principal Resident Artist with Opera San Jose and will return to Santa Fe Opera next summer where he was Apprentice Artist last summer, this was his first art song recital. Wisely he paired up with consummate singer Robynne Redmon who has had a long and very successful career, from the Met in New York to Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and Teatro alla Scala, Milan, among many other houses. The tie is, they are both Virginia Wesleyan College graduates; in fact, their encore was dedicated to their mentor at VWC, Dr. David Clayton. One of Tidewater’s most trusted art song accompanists, Charles Woodward, was at the piano. He is also Interim Music Director of the Virginia Chorale for the 2011-2012 season. His musical training was at Northwestern University. Mr. Dailey, who grew up in Hampton, opened the program with four Neapolitan songs by Italian composer Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1916). He sang La Serenata (Serenade), A Vucchella (A Sweet Mouth) and Penso (I Think) before he paused to tell us what the songs are about (the program provided texts) and then closed the set with Aprile (April). These are intensely emotional songs with pretty melodies. With apparent effortless singing, Mr. Dailey, a tall, thin, young man with beautiful hands to match his voice, seemed to shape the sound with spare gestures. These songs are of love and adoration for a beautiful woman – her kissable mouth, her sweet smile when half-asleep; of spring, when love blossoms; and about the fear of rejection that used the urgency in his tenor voice and had the most impressive, delicate pianissimo ending. Later we learned that he was singing from his heart - he was married in December. Ms. Redmon sang Seite canciones populares españolas written by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946). The set of seven folk melodies from various regions of Spain have beautifully crafted brilliant accompaniments that preserve the spirit of folk music. Falla wrote: “ In all honesty, I think that in popular song the spirit is more important than the letter.” In brief songs we have seven unique moods set by the piano and captured by Ms. Redmon’s singing. Subtle texts are freely set. El paño moruno (The Moorish cloth) speaks of a fine piece of cloth that, like a young woman’s virtue, becomes almost worthless when soiled . A similar message in Séguidilla murciana uses a coin passed from hand to hand to make the point in a dance tune. The plaintive melody of Asturiana (Asturias is a region in northern Spain) is followed by Jota, a dance from Aragon. You hear the guitar and castanets in the piano. Nana is a tender lullaby from Andalusia, a cradle song Falla heard as a child and Canción is a flirtatious, charming love song. Polo concludes the set on a high note. This vibrant tune is from the Gypsy world of flamenco and is a cante jondo or deep song. Here we find sadness and love united in a high-spirited, passionate song, wonderfully performed. Ms. Redmon, in a stunning red satin, fitted-gown with a black feather boa appeared like a chanteuse in a nightclub singing Cabaret Songs by Benjamin Britten. The poet W.H. Auden furnished the text to his younger friend Britten after they worked together on a documentary film for the British government. The opening song, Tell Me the Truth About Love, is reminiscent of Cole Porter’s sophisticated style. The mood shifts in Funeral Blues where the tempo slows and each word was firmly articulated to give us this tough gal’s sense of loss. Johnny is the type of guy that Dear Abby would definitely tell you to lose. Calypso is suggestive. The rushing acceleration of the taxi to meet one’s new lover at the train station has a fast-paced rhythm, intense vocals and a whistle blown by the pianist, urging us onward to a dramatic climax. The very popular La donna è mobile from Rigoletto was introduced by Mr. Dailey: “Guiseppe Verdi kept the tune a secret until the opening night of his new opera, only to see it go viral immediately after." The singer told us that the Duke who sings that women are fickle "is one of only a few mean characters I ever played.” Vocally splendid, Mr. Dailey gave us this bouncy tune with a twinkle in his eye and a boyish joy in his firmly focused voice. Trading her black boa for a red shawl, Ms. Redmon introduced her "um pah pah" aria, also a Verdi favorite and a personal favorite of hers, Stride la vampa. The opera is set in 15th century Spain. Azucena (the role from Il Trovatore that she will sing April 27 and 29 with North Carolina Opera) is a gypsy woman seeking revenge for her mother who was burned at the stake as a witch after she threw an infant into a fire. From this tortured plot comes the powerful aria Stride la vampa (The flames are roaring). I was mesmerized as she became the character and my attention was riveted throughout. Roger Quilter (1877-1953), an English composer, became known for his songs in 1900 when his Songs of the Sea were presented at the Crystal Palace. Quilter loved English poetry and his best songs are settings of Shakespeare, the Elizabethans, Blake, Shelly, Tennyson and Harrick. Mr. Dailey sang To Julia, a cycle of five poems by Robert Harrick (1591-1674), premiered in 1905. They speak of several facets of adoration for the beloved in The bracelet, The maiden blush, To daisies, The night piece, Julia’s hair and Cherry Ripe. He sang exquisitely of loving a beautiful young woman. The set included solo piano songs, Prelude and Interlude and gave us time to focus and appreciate the skill and beauty in Mr. Woodward’s playing. The complete texts can be found at http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/. For an introduction to Quilter see Roger Quilter: His Life and Times by Valerie Langfield reviewed at http://www.pinktriangle.org.uk/glh/232/langfield.html by Dan O’Hara. There you will learn that Quilter poured his unfulfilled longing for a same-sex partner into some eighty-five songs. To Julia can be found on a Naxos CD (8.557116) devoted exclusively to Quilter songs. The final programmed selection was their first song together. C’est toi, c’est moi is the final encounter from Bizet’s Carmen. Carmen and Don José encounter each other outside the bull ring. She is ferocious in her contempt for him while he is threatening and hyper; they argue as the scene becomes electric and totally real, not twenty feet away from us. Carmen declares her lines and then turns her back to him as he tries to argue. Finally she tosses the ring he gave her in the dirt and, the furies of hell are in his face as he stabs her. We were stunned! To ease us down from the emotional intensity, the encore was the Meow Duet by Rossini, a bel canto competition of two alley cats which left us in a jovial mood. After the concert we had a chance to visit with Ms. Redmon’s parents and Messrs. Dailey and Woodward’s mothers. Songs and Poems of War Chris Mooney was a magician on April 2nd. Piece by piece he built a picture of how it feels to be a soldier. Leilani Giles was at the piano. With a screen overhead at the front of the proscenium and a lectern on the left of the stage, the program began when 2011 graduate Scott Crissman appeared and read Anthem for a Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). In World War I, Owen was wounded and while he was recuperating, a friend encouraged him to write poetry about his experience. He depicted graphic images of the horrors of war. When he recovered he returned to the battlefield and was killed a week before the war ended. In the first song, No Man’s Land (aka Green Fields of France), Mr. Mooney was accompanied by piano, flute (Samantha Webber) and percussion (Zach Riviere). Written in 1976 by Scottish singer-songwriter Eric Bogle, it draws on two songs commonly played at funerals for soldiers. The song describes a visit by the composer to a French military cemetery, where he reflects on the waste and futility of war. One of the projected pictures was of a field of poppies and there were pictures of young WW I soldiers and a tombstone with a death date of 1916. The next songs and poems were by Walt Whitman (1819-1892), who was a volunteer nurse during the Civil War and was deeply affected, befriending wounded soldiers in hospital and on the fields of battle. Whitman’s graphic descriptions were called “obscene” and “overtly sexual” but he is a key shaper of our perspective on the Civil War and of our nation in the years after. Mr. Mooney sang a Richard Pearson Thomas (b. 1957) song from his cycle Drum Taps: A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim. It is a vivid description of the faces of three dead men covered by blankets on the field. Whitman uncovers each face by turn and gives his description of what he saw –a gaunt old man, a youth in the first blush of his manhood, and in the third he saw the face of Christ himself. Period photographs were the visual. In the second reading, by Christopher Tedrow, Whitman gives voice to a soldier who comes alive in The Real War Will Never Get in the Books. What interested Whitman was not the war described by patriotic rhetoric or politicians but rather the interior experience of the ordinary soldier. War Scenes (1969) by Ned Rorem is a five-song cycle with the last song a setting of The Real War Will Never Get in the Books . The other titles are A Night Battle, Specimen Case, An Incident and Inauguration Ball. The songs speak of fights, both on the battle field and for one’s life after being wounded. Inauguration Ball speaks of the psychological aftermath for Whitman of the war. The ballroom now filled with perfumed women and dancing had once been used as a hospital for “amputation, the blue face, the groan and glassy eye of the dying...” Rorem’s dedication on the score reads “To those who died in Vietnam, both sides, during the composition: 20-30 June, 1969.” The third reading was from A Last Word by Ernie Pyle (1900-1945), an American war correspondent who wrote about common soldiers and their experience in WW II. His reports were collected in book form. After being with the allies at the invasion of North Africa, Italy and Normandy, he was killed by Japanese sniper fire during the landing on Okinawa. A more recent song, Old Red Hills of Home by Jason Robert Brown (b.1970), was accompanied by a drum and piano with pictures of Confederate flags and young Southern men in uniform. The longing for home and the grand swell of Mr. Mooney’s voice left a vivid emotional impression. Tell My Father by Frank Wildhorn (b. 1958) from his cycle Civil War opened with guitar played by CNU student Will Fruchterman. The tune was a downhome country song with the text a letter home to a soldier’s father. The fourth reading, Union Private Arthur van Lisle at the Battle of Chickamauga (1863) was by Brandon Lareau. With precise, resonant voice he read the story of a Rebel soldier who gave his canteen to a wounded Union soldier on the battlefield. Emily DeWoolfson (b.1992) is a second year CNU composition student who wrote the next set of songs, Voices of the Civil War. She created vivid settings titled: Death was in the Air and Rock of Ages sung as a funeral party bears the fallen to the grave. The text of The Tale of the Great Rebellion is from a letter home; the writer is resigned to accept the inevitability of his death. The drum ending is like a gunshot to the listener’s soul. Mr. Crissman then read Corporal Stare by Robert Graves (1895-1985) from Fairies and Fusiliers. At a dinner for 500 soldiers the ghost of a sergeant killed is recalled. From a song cycle The Shropshire Lad by George Butterworth (1885-1916) we heard The Lads in Their Hundreds (lads who will die in their glory and will never be home) and Is My Team Ploughing? (the farmer who used to plow this land now lies under it). But still it is a hopeful story. Set as a dialogue between the lad under the ground and the man who had survived to grow-up, Mr. Mooney gave voice to both using a lighter, sweeter part of his voice for the dead youth in contrast to his usual deeper baritone for the survivor. The man had married the lad’s sweetheart and life had continuity. Mr. Tedrow then read Invasion by John Steinbeck (1902-1968) from his book Once There Was a War followed by another song, Private First Class Jesse Givens by Lee Hoiby (b.1926) with projected photos of military families greeting or saying goodbye, including at the end, a photo of the Givens family. The most gripping was a boy asleep on his Dad’s shoulder. A Last Letter Home, as the song has come to be known, was written to be opened only if he did not return. Writing to his five-year-old son he says “I will always be there with you.” But he is not. Hoiby dedicated his song to “the fallen of Iraq.” The last reading, by Mr. Lareau, was from the book Jarhead by Anthony Swofford (b.1970) and was most visceral. Sitting there in the dark you realize that war will never end: human beings make war and will continue to do so. The closing song had the staged filled with handsome, enthusiastic, young men and women, the OMA Men’s Chorus with Paul Keene, conductor, and five young women as a chorus repeating Fare Well, the title of Irish composer C.V. Stanford’s (1852-1924) work. Mr. Mooney sang verses depicting naval combat and life as a sailor. Projected pictures were from CNN’s “Home and Away” initiative and were photos of the men and women of Tidewater who have died in the recent wars. To close, a line from the song: “Greet them again, with tender words and grave – for saving thee, themselves they could not save.”
Back to Issues |