Bass-Barihunk Ryan McKinny will join soprano Amanda Majeski in kicking off the 2014-15 season of the George
London Foundation for Singers with a joint recital at Gilder Lehrman
Hall at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The recital will be McKinny's New York
recital debut. The two singers are both past winners of the George London Award.
McKinny will sing three selections from
Schubert's Schwanengesang, Die Frist ist um
from Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, and Se vuol ballare from
Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Together they will perform If I Loved You from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel.
The performance is on Sunday, November 9, 2014, at
4:30 PM, with pianist Ken Noda. Additional information is available online.
Our "reader submissions" feature has been particularly popular with readers from Germany, the Netherlands and France. Our latest submission is the 34-year-old Dutch barihunk Thomas Oliemans, who we mentioned yesterday is about to open as Marcello in Puccini's "La Boheme" with the Nationale Reisoper.
His career has taken off in the last five years, with debuts at Salzburg in Schreker's "Die Gezeichneten," Papageno in Mozart´s "Die Zauberflöte" with the Opera of Nantes and Angers, and Guglielmo in Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte" in Geneva. Recent engagements have included Figaro in Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" at the Scottish Opera, Maximilan in Bernstein's "Candide" at the Vlaamse Opera, Harlequin in Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" at the Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg and Tarquinius in Britten's "Rape of Lucretia" at the Vlaamse Opera.
Oliemans is increasingly in demand as a recording artist. He recorded songs by Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré with pianist Malcolm Martineau, Schubert’s Winterreise and Schwanengesang, as well as songs by Frank Martin.
Here is Oliemans with pianist Malcolm Martineau recording Schuberts "Schwanengesang" in London last year.
The layout of this blog cuts off part of the video. You can see the complete picture at Trinity Wall Street's website.
The songs of Schwanengesang, in the composer's original order, are:
* By Ludwig Rellstab:
o Liebesbotschaft ("Message of love"; the singer invites a stream to convey a message to his beloved)
o Kriegers Ahnung ("Warrior's foreboding"; a soldier encamped with his comrades sings of how he misses his beloved)
o Frühlingssehnsucht ("Longing in spring": the singer is surrounded by natural beauty but feels melancholy and unsatisfied until his beloved can "free the spring in my breast")
o Ständchen (Serenade)
o Aufenthalt ("Dwelling place": the singer is consumed by anguish for reasons we aren't told, and likens his feelings to the river, forest and mountain around him)
o In der Ferne ("In the distance": the singer has fled his home, broken-hearted, and complains of having no friends and no home; he asks the breezes and sunbeams to convey his greetings to the one who broke his heart)
o Abschied ("Farewell": the singer bids a cheery but determined farewell to a town where he has been happy but which he must now leave)
* By Heinrich Heine:
o Der Atlas ("Atlas": the singer, having wished for eternal happiness or eternal wretchedness, has the latter, and blames himself for the weight of sorrow, as heavy as the world, that he now bears)
o Ihr Bild ("Her image": the singer tells his beloved of how he dreamed (daydreamed?) that a portrait of her favoured him with a smile and a tear; but alas, he has lost her)
o Das Fischermädchen ("The fisher-maiden": the singer tries to sweet-talk a fishing girl into a romantic encounter, drawing parallels between his heart and the sea)
o Die Stadt ("The city": the singer is in a boat rowing towards the city where he lost the one he loved; it comes foggily into view)
o Am Meer ("By the sea": the singer tells of how he and his beloved met in silence beside the sea, and she wept; since then he has been consumed with longing — she has poisoned him with her tears)
o Der Doppelgänger ("The double": the singer looks at the house where his beloved once lived, and is horrified to see someone standing outside it in torment — it is, or appears to be, none other than himself, aping his misery of long ago)
* The last song based on a poem written by Johann Gabriel Seidl (1804 - 1875).
o Taubenpost ("Pigeon post"; the song that is often considered as a last lied that Schubert ever wrote. The song is included into a cycle by the first editor and is almost always included in modern performances)
