New York's operamission is continuing its ongoing series of presenting all 39 of Handel's complete operas with Rinaldo on June 14 and 16 at Merkin Concert Hall. Conductor Jennifer Peterson will lead a full baroque orchestra from the harpsichord in a concert performance of the opera, which is based on Torquato Tasso's La Gerusalemme liberata.
Barihunk Franco Pomponi will sing Argante and hunken-countertenor Randall Scotting will sing the title role of Rinaldo. They'll be joined by soprano Christine Arand as the Queen Armida, soprano Malia Bendi Merad as Almirena and countertenors Nicholas Tamagna as Goffredo and Andrew Rader as Eustazio.
Franco Pomponi sings Hamlet's drinking song (at the 2:00 mark):
Pomponi will be singing Prospero in Thomas Adès' The Tempest at the Hungarian State Opera from May 19-June 1. After he's done performing Rinaldo, Scotting will continue to work out at the gym in preparation for his first bodybuilding competition (and providing further proof that we need a Hunken-Countertenor site).
Tickets for Rinaldo are $55 and $75 ($45 for students and seniors) and are available online.
If you live in New York and missed the new opera workshop at Frontiers at the Fort Worth Opera, you're in luck. There will be a workshop reading of the sensational new work by composer Clint Borzoni and librettist John De Los Santos presented by operamission on Thursday, May 21 at 8 PM in the rehearsal hall at OPERA America's National Opera Center (330 Seventh Avenue at 29th Street) in New York.
The Poet will be sung by Grant Youngblood and The Muse by Michael Weyandt. The performance will feature string quartet and percussion and be conducted by Jennifer Peterson. The opera is based on the homoerotic poetry of Gavin Geoffrey Dillard.
You can watch the clips from Frontiers, which feature Tyson Deaton conducting with piano accompaniment by Stephen Carey. Wes Mason sang The Poet and Matt Moeller sang The Muse.
John De Los Santos and Clint Borzoni discuss "When Adonis Calls"
The performance will also include the world premiere of Clint Borzoni's song cycle "Earth, my likeness" featuring countertenor Daniel Bubeck. The piece is based on the poems of Constantine Cavafy, May Swenson and Walt Whitman.
Tickets are $20 in advance and are available online.
Emerging talent Brian Mextorf, who we introduced back in February, will be performing as part of operamission's 90-minute recital series, which occurs on the last Thursday of each month. Mextorf will perform Edvard Grieg's Six Songs, Op. 48 on April 30th in a program that also includes soprano Laura Kelleher singing Claude Debussy's Ariettes Oubliées and tenor David Kellett singing Schumann's Dichterliebe. The Grieg will be performed in its original German.
Tenor Cullen Gandy and Brian Mextorf sing the Pearl Fishers duet:
Other performances include a March 26th program featuring German songs peformed by tenor Mark Duffin, baritone Grant Youngblood, soprano Elisabeth Turchi and countertenor David Stanley. On May 28th, tenor Adam Klein will sing Schubert's Schwanengesang along with mezzo-soprano Kimberly Sogioka performing Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Été.
Tickets for the first three programs
are currently on sale for $20 online. Cabaret and conventional seating include light refreshments and opportunity to meet the artists.Conductor Jennifer Peterson accompanies at the piano and curates the programs.
Every so often we regret having missed telling our readers about a barihunk appearance. Michael Weyandt's appearance as Fernando in Handel's Almira with operamission at the Gershwin Hotel was a prime example. New York Times classical music critic Anthony Tommaini wrote glowingly about the performance and wrote that the role of Fernando was "...movingly performed here by the virile, ardent baritone Michael Weyandt." You can read the entire review on the NY Times website.
We wanted to share a bit of the performance for those of you who missed this wonderful talent.
In the first part of the video you'll hear Weyandt sing "Edele Sinnen schaffen von hinnen" followed by the arioso "Was ist des Hofes Gunst? ein Dunst." The rough translations are:
"Noble thoughts soothe away whatever causes annoyance and harm. And on the contrary strive by all means to become on earth delighted in sweetest repose."
--and--
"What is the favor of the court? A mist, that swiftly disperses; a labyrinth of the times, that invariably takes us from crown and throne to prison."
We've featured numerous operamission concerts on our website and they are a must for anyone in the New York area. You can follow them on Facebook or Twitter at @operamission.
We celebrate baritone birthdays daily on Barihunks, but today we thought that it was important to celebrate the birthday of poet Walt Whitman.
Whitman has not inspired scores of composers to set his poetry to music, but singers are often so personally moved by the text that they seek out songs set to his words. Don't miss the selection from Randal Turner singing Clint Borzoni's "I Dream'd in a Dream" with the singers personal tale of inspiration and hope.
According to Michael Hovland's Musical Settings of American Poets, the poetry of Walt Whitman has been set to music 539 times, more than that of any other American poet with the exceptions of Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Composers as diverse as Ned Rorem, Frederick Delius, Clint Borzoni, Ricky Ian Gordon, Kurt Weill, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roy Harris, Lee Hoiby
Ian Greenlaw sings 'Oh Captain! My Captain!' from Kurt Weill's Walt Whitman songs. Performed at a cabaret sponsored by operamission last year in New York:
Walt Whitman is known for his famous, and controversial, collection of poems, Leaves of Grass.
Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York. His mother, Louisa Van Velsor, was descended from a long line of New York Dutch farmers; his father, Walter Whitman, was a Long Island farmer and carpenter. His mother was Louisa Van Velsor.
In 1823, the family moved to Brooklyn in search of work. The second of nine children in an undistinguished family, Whitman received little in the way of formal education. He still managed to read the works of Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare.
A sunstroke in 1885 and another paralytic stroke made Walt Whitman increasingly dependent on others. He died of complications from a stroke on March 26, 1892.
At the age of 17, Whitman began teaching at various Long Island schools and continued to teach until he went to New York City to be a printer for the New World and a reporter for the Democratic Review in 1841. For much of the next years, he made his livelihood through journalism. Besides reporting and freelance writing, he also edited several Brooklyn newspapers, including the "Daily Eagle," the "Freeman," and the "Times."
In 1848, Whitman met and was hired by a representative of the New Orleans Crescent. Although the job lasted only a few months, the journey by train, stagecoach, and steamboat helped to broaden his view of America.
Randal Turner sings Clint Borzoni's "I Dreamed in a Dream" and talks about how this song made him think about the gay teens being bullied, including his own personal story.
Whitman received little money with the first edition of Leaves of Grass,
but he did receive some attention, including a letter from Ralph Waldo
Emerson. The second edition in 1860 with the "Calamus" poems and the
third edition of Leaves created controversy for readers, but the Civil War turned all eyes on the battlefields.
Whitman
traveled to Virginia to search for his brother, George, and found him
wounded. He stayed to help tend wounded soldiers in Washington DC; and
wrote some of his famous war poetry, printed partially as "Drum Taps"
and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." He witnessed Lincoln's
second inauguration and mourned the assassination of Lincoln in April.
In
the years after the war, Whitman's reputation increased both in England
and in the US. In January of 1873, he suffered a paralytic stroke.
Several months later, in May, his mother died. Unable to work, he
returned to live with his brother in Camden, New Jersey.
He was
able to take trips to New York, Boston, and even to Colorado to see the
Rocky Mountains, but his declining health mostly provided him with the
opportunity to restructure and revise his most famous work, Leaves of Grass, the culmination of so many previously published collections.
###
Bryn Terfel sings English composer Frederick Delius' "Sea Drift", based the poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" from Book XIX of the poetry collection "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. The work was premiered in 1906 and the poetry is suffused with images of love, the sea and death as Whitman observes two mating birds, the male's bewilderment, following the death of the female, becoming analogous to the human experience of loss and grief.
The son of a cantor, Kurt Weill was born in Dessau into a family that took in operatic performances as a main form of entertainment. When Weill was in his teens the director of the Dessau Hoftheater, Albert Bing, encouraged him in the study of music. Weill briefly studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and was already working professionally as a conductor when he attended composer Ferruccio Busoni's master classes in Berlin. Delighted to see the positive responses of an audience to his first collaboration with playwright Georg Kaiser, Der Protagonist (1926), he thereafter resolved to work toward accessibility in his music. In 1926 Weill married actress Lotte Lenya, whose reedy, quavering singing voice he called "the one I hear in my head when I am writing my songs."
Kevin Burdette sings 'Let Things Be Like They Always Was' from Street Scene:
In 1927 Weill began his collaboration with leftist playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht; their first joint venture, Mahagonny-Songspiel (1927), launched the number "Alabama Song," which, to their surprise, became a minor pop hit in Europe. The next show, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Three-Penny Opera, 1928), was a monstrous success, in particular the song "Moritat" ("Mack the Knife").
Louis Armstrong plays and sings Mack the Knife:
Nonetheless, strain in their association was already being felt, and after the completion of their magnificent "school opera" Der Jasager (1930), the two parted company. Brecht and Weill were brought together once more in Paris to create Die Sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins) in 1934. In the meantime, Weill collaborated with Caspar Neher on the opera Die Bürgschaft (1931) and Georg Kaiser again on Der Silbersee (1933), works that garnered the hostile attention of the then-emerging Nazi party.
Liam Bonner sings "Lost in the Stars"
With the rise to power of Hitler, Weill and Lenya were forced to dissolve their union and flee Continental Europe. Weill found his way to New York in 1935; rejoining Lenya, Weill became a citizen and devoted himself to American democracy with a vengeance, preferring his name pronounced like "wile" rather than "vile." After a series of frustrating flops, Weill hit his stride with playwright Maxwell Anderson, producing his first hit, Knickerbocker Holiday (1938).
Frank Sinatra sings "September Song"
In the dozen years left to him, Weill's stature on Broadway grew with a series of hit shows, including Lady in the Dark (1941), One Touch of Venus (1943), Love Life (1948), and Lost in the Stars (1949). Weill had ambitions to create what he regarded as "the first American folk opera"; the closest of his American works to reach that goal is Street Scene (1946), a sort of "urban folk opera" based on a play by Elmer Rice with lyrics by Langston Hughes.
Jorell Williams sings 'I Got a Marble and a Star' from Street Scene
On April 3, 1950, Weill unexpectedly suffered a massive coronary and died in Lenya's arms. Weill's estate was valued at less than 1,000 dollars, and Lenya realized that his contribution to musical theater was likewise undervalued. She commissioned composer Marc Blitzstein to adapt an English-language version of Die Dreigroschenoper; it opened off-Broadway in 1954 and ran for three years, touching off a Weill revival that continues to this day.
A number of his works were scored for baritone including (partial):
- 1923 : Stundenbuch, Lieder cycle for baritone and orchestra, text: Rainer Maria Rilke
- 1928 : Das Berliner Requiem, cantata for tenor, baritone, male chorus (or three male voices) and wind orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht)
-1928 : The Threepenny Opera (German: Die Dreigroschenoper), Macheath (tenor or baritone), Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, Tiger Brown and numerous smaller roles.
- 1929 : Der Lindberghflug, cantata for tenor, baritone and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht, first version with music by Paul Hindemith and Weill, second version, also 1929, with music exclusively by Weill)
- 1930 : Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Dreieinigkeitsmoses (Trinity Moses), Sparbüchsen Billy (Bank Account Billy) and Alaska Wolf Joe.
- 1947 : Street Scene, Frank Maurrant, George Jones and numerous smaller roles.
David Bowie sings "Moon of Alabama"
Ian Greenlaw sings 'Oh Captain! My Captain!' from Walt Whitman Songs
Songs frequently performed by baritones include (partial):
- Lost In The Stars, F Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Lost In The Stars'.
- Mack The Knife, C Major, composed by Marc Blitzstein, Kurt Weill, from 'The Threepenny Opera'.
- September Song, C Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Knickerbocker Holiday'.
- This Is The Life, Eb Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Love Life'.
- Thousands Of Miles, C Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Lost In The Stars'.
Randal Turner, Francis Poulenc & Michael Weyandt (Clockwise from top left)
We want to remind readers about the Poulenc Cabaret at 8:00 pm on Thursday, February 2 at the Gershwin Hotel, 7 East 27th Street in New York City. The concert by operamission will include Banalités, Chansons gaillardes, la Courte paille, Les Mamelles de Tirésias (from the opera), plus more settings of Guillaume Apollinaire, Louis Aragon, two cabaret-friendly songs written for Yvonne Printemps, clarinet sonata from 1962, solo piano Improvisation n° 15 and Hommage à Edith Piaf.
Simon Keenlyside sings Poulenc's Hôtel:
In addition to barihunks Randal Turner, Ross Benoliel and Michael Weyandt, artists include clarinetist Cory Tiffin, pianists Max Midroit and Jennifer Peterson, singers Michelle Jennings, John Carlo Pierce, Marcy Richardson, Kimberly Sogioka and Nicholas Tamagna. Tickets are only $20.
The cast of NYCO's "Prima Donna"
You can also see Randal Turner at New York City Opera where he is appearing in Rufus Wainwright's "Prima Donna." Thanks to a generous gift from The Reed Foundation and The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation all remaining tickets for Prima Donna, as well as La traviata are only $25. What are you waiting for? Visit their website for tickets now. You can also buy Randal Turner's CD of "Living American Composers" by clicking the link below:
