Highlights from The Magic Flute
And other Mozart arias
All right, I sort of broadened my horizons and had an OK time. Opera is not always my favorite, and Mozart is not always my favorite, but the vocalists from the Juilliard School’s Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts did put on a good show.
The afternoon started off with three arias from Le nozze di Figaro. An aria from
Die Entführung aus dem Serail was scratched (the soprano was suffering from a cold, though we didn’t get that information until much later in the concert, a bit of bad form on the library’s management front). Two arias from Don Giovanni followed.
Se vuol ballare, from Figaro, was sung by bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum, who sang with a good, natural, deep sound. He sang well but his stage comportment was slightly lacking. Amanda Lynn Bottoms, mezzo-soprano, sang Voi che sapete. In introducing her character from the opera, she described a “crazy little teenager.” Some of that came through while, vocally, she seemed to be hiding behind the mask of her sound. I’ve been guilty of that myself in the past; you’re so concerned about producing a good, focused sound that you end up not singing freely. But these are students, and I think that they’ll continue to grow into themselves as performers. Deh vieni non tardar, also from Figaro, was sung by soprano Angela Vallone, who had a better connection with her vocal sound, and had pretty good to very good vocal control.
Deh, vieni alla finestra, from Don Giovanni, was sung by baritone Xiaomeng Zhang who sang nicely but seemed once again to be trying to be an opera singer rather than trying to be a singer. I almost got the feeling that he was auditioning, not performing. Mind you, these are really tiny quibbles—all of the singing was of a really high quality. Rebecca Farley, soprano, sang Batti batti o bel Masetto, also from Don Giovanni. I enjoyed it even though the accompaniment essentially doubling the vocal line was a little disconcerting. Oh, and a phone went off during the aria. Can I get a “sheesh?”
At this point there was a brief interval—not really an intermission, and not really explained to us. What followed were highlights from Die Zauberflöte, with a narration of the plot delivered by Evan Leslie, of the Library for the Performing Arts. And the vocals were also sung against a backdrop of slides depicting costume and stage designs for various productions of Magic Flute, taken from the recently opened exhibit at the Library. The narration went very nicely, with a few bobbles, and the slides were interesting although, for the most part, the large screen they were projected on was mostly blank—slightly odd, in that the slides only took up about one-third of the screen.
Baritone Dimitri Katotakis sang selections from the role of Papageno. The semi-staging and mime were done well, and he sang with a good, natural sound. He was joined by Pamina (Ms. Farley) in a cute duet, Bei Männern, welche Lieben fühlen. It was at this point, where the famous Queen of the Night aria was supposed to be performed, that we finally learned of the reason we hadn’t heard from the soprano who had been scheduled to sing two earlier arias. Ms. Farley then acquitted herself nicely with Ach, ich fühl’s, which was pleasant, though there were a few vocal technical glitches.
Mr. Katotakis then returned with Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen, a sort of male version of a spinning song (miming a music box?) that was more like an art song than an aria. I liked it. Papageno’s suicide aria, Papagena…Papagena, followed, in a nice, straightforward performance. Mr. Katotakis was joined by Ms. Vallone in the duet, Pa-pa-pa, which was enjoyable, and a great way to cap off the end of the afternoon. A shout out is welcome at this time for Valeriya Polunina, who was the able accompanist/collaborator with all of the afternoon’s vocalists.
So, did the afternoon inspire me to rush out and find a performance of the full Zauberflöte? It did not. Nor, for that matter, Figaro or Don Giovanni. But I did enjoy hearing these young singers in a well-thought-out afternoon of arias and duets.
ConcertMeister
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