Recitals | Tech-Toy | Italy

RECITALS & CONCERTS

April was the month of recitals. I think I set a record this year—five recitals in one month! I started things off with Meghan Garvin’s senior recital at SLU, then Stephanie Ball’s Masters Recital for WashU a few days later. One particular Sunday, I did a 3-recital marathon: Joy Boland at Christ Church Cathedral, Tom Sitzler’s Masters Recital at WashU and Anthony Heinemann’s senior recital (for SLU) at Union Avenue. Capping off this month of recitals was a concert in Belleville with Christine Brewer and broadway singer Anna McNeely.

One highlight for me from each (though there were many of note):

- Meghan’s Frauenliebe und –Leben

- Stephanie’s Roussel set (with flute)

- Joy’s Puccini arias from Turandot

- Tom’s rendition of Hoiby’s “Last Letter Home”

- Anthony’s Tosti/Donaudy set

- Anna’s Broadway show selections (loved her “Broadway Baby”)

- Christine’s dramatic-soprano encores (which will be released on CD soon)

This month of recitals gives me an itch to audition for Artists’ Presentation Society next year. I have rep that I’d love to put out there…plus I’ve been plugging away at character Tenor rep for some time now. It’s time!

A little over a week after seeing Christine Brewer’s concert in Belleville, I had the opportunity to see her again in an all-Wagner concert with the Saint Louis Symphony. She performed the Liebestod as well as the final scene from Die Walküre with Alan Held (whom I remember from Salome in Chicago). The former was sublime; the latter makes me want to rediscover the Ring Cycle. It was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

THE NEW TOY

A couple weeks ago, I bought myself a new tech-toy. Usually when faced with the urge to splurge on a tech-toy, I second-guess the purchase until I spin myself out of the temptation. It’s a good habit that has spared me money woes. Not this time, though. I now own software and video/audio connections to convert my VHS tapes into DVD format. It’s mostly an effort to downsize and simplify my life, but also to preserve some of my treasures…including a live broadcast of The Light in the Piazza from PBS, the 1982 Pirates of Penzance movie (a box office disaster which will probably never be digitized), plus a bunch of college plays and musicals. I also promised my family I would make DVDs of my sister’s wedding and various family vacations. Bring on the awkward memories!!!

ITALY [!!!]

A month from now, I get on a plane for Italy. There is so much to do between now and then, I cannot even begin to say. However, I can say for sure that I have my plane ticket, hotel reservations in every city (even Venice, which costs an arm/leg), plus my Eurail pass. So that’s getting somewhere. Since church choir will be singing in three of the cities we visit (Rome, Assisi, Florence), we’re gearing up for that with rehearsals. The repertoire is a mix of sacred works (classical and renaissance period) and American spirituals—which Italians tend to enjoy greatly since that form is not part of their cultural/musical history. So far, I’ve heard that while in Rome, we’ll be singing in a service at a major Anglican Church which reportedly has a Sunday attendance second only to the Vatican!! (Funny how in the birthplace—more or less—of Catholicism, we’ll be singing somewhere non-Catholic.) Oh, and a certain traveler in our group will be turning the big THREE-OH while we’re in Rome. Can we say Birthday debauchery?!?!! More on Italy as it approaches.

2009: End of the Aughts

Well, another year has marched on by. Let’s take a look at what happened for me in 2009... I saw some great concerts with some heavyweight Broadway talents: Kristin Chenoweth, Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone! Also got to see some great operas, including Salome and Ghosts of Versailles at OTSL, plus a world premiere musical: Abe—which turned out to be quite entertaining (despite all the hype of its camp value). Got the opportunity to go to Italy (next year) with my church choir peeps. Best of all, I worked a LOT this year. My favorite gig? Merry Widow, because who wouldn’t love to sing German operetta in German??? Was great to work with Tim Ocel twice: first with Don Pasquale and secondly with Amahl and the Night Visitors—for which I got my first legit newspaper review. And as much as we had to say about O Pioneers!—for better or worse—there is something to be said about doing a new work and creating the first characterization of a role…and being heard on the radio for it wasn’t too shabby, neither!

Can you believe we’re about done with another decade?!? Remember how about 10 years ago this time, lots of people were freaking that computers were going to send us back to the stone age? Crazy that it’s been that long. Looking back, there were many highlights to the years of the Aughts—the decade of my twenties. Here’s a list of some highlights of each year:

2000 – The Pirates of Penzance | attending President Clinton’s speech in Quincy

2001 – spending Spring Break in cold Chicago | having the best. summer. job. EVER: MUNY Usher

2002 – Amos in Chicago | turning 21 | experiencing real-life sitcom living in Senior House with Mark, John and all those wacky guest stars (you know who you are!)

2003 – going on Franciscan Pilgrimage to Italy

2004 – conducting Gypsy | graduating from QU | becoming Uncle Phil to little William

2005 – having least stressful (and laziest) summer in recent memory

2006 – earning my Masters from WashU | seeing Voigt in Salome

2007 – birth of my niece, Grace | performing The Magic Flute | seeing Christine Brewer in Die Frau ohne Schatten…then missing the bus!

2008 – serving as Best Man at John and Hilda’s wedding | experiencing and obsessing over the Election

2009 – making Radio Broadcast Debut | singing quite often (and in this economy, that’s a blessing!)

Hope you have an enjoyable (and safe) New Year’s Eve. I’ll be enjoying a friend’s cabaret concert in midtown, then ringing in the new year in South City. Happy 2010!

REVIEW: An Evening With Patti & Mandy @ Fox

The other day, my dear friend Joy happily came across some comps for a concert that I had decided initially that I'd have to pass up for scrimpin' and savin' reasons.

In the past couple years, I've seen several of my favorite singers/personalities live, including Christine Brewer, Bryn Terfel, Susan Graham, Debbie Voigt, Margaret Cho and most recently Kristin Chenoweth. It's all so surreal! To finally know they exist not just on CD or television. You're actually in the same concert hall/opera house/theatre with them!! I know this seems so gauche of me, but it's an honest feeling I get...

...and I got it definitely tonight at An Evening with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin. They'd not worked together since their monumental performances together in the original Broadway production of Evita...and it was like watching two old friends collaborating as if twenty or so years really hadn't passed by.

What I loved most about the evening was that it didn't feel like a conventional concert. Patti and Mandy treated the evening almost as if it were a classical recital, except the repertoire was not Schubert, Debussy or Copland...it was of equal giants in the musical theatre canon: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kern, Loesser and Sondheim. Groups songs by these composers were woven into almost a Liederkreis of sorts. We were given a story to watch. I was very touched by Mandy and Patti's recapitulation of the Carousel story, especially.

Of course, the evening also allowed for some solo turns. Patti came out and knocked 'em dead with two solos instrumental in her early career ("Don't Cry for Me, Argentina") and her most recent work ("Everything's Coming Up Roses"). Mandy gave an inspired, borscht-belt reading of "Buddy's Blues" from Follies. It was a little disappointing, though, that he nixed "Oh What a Circus" this evening. The duo closed out the evening with the delightful ditty "Coffee in a Cardboard Cup," which I now am determined to sing with a willing duet partner!

It all flashed by so fast, yet with such pacing, I was never left wanting more. A truly wonderful evening of song!

REVIEW: Kristin Chenoweth Concert @ Fox

The Kristin Chenoweth Concert @ the Fox Theatre was a very warm breeze in this cold, and getting colder, month of January.  It was one of those events I knew I couldn't miss, much like seeing Margaret Cho last spring.  The first half of her program included medleys from old-school musical theatre composers Meredith Willson (a lovely job on "Till There Was You") and Jerome Kern (her "Bill" was simply touching).  We also got a glimpse into her quirky real-life crush on a Starbucks employee in "Taylor, the Latté Boy." Kristin ended the first half of the program with Irving Berlin's energetic "Let Yourself Go," backed up by two talented Broadway dancers, who joined her throughout the evening, and provided a humorous Brokeback Mountain-esque punchline in the dance number "Goin' To The Dance With You."

Throughout the evening, Ms. Chenoweth paid tribute to modern musical theatre composers including Stephen Schwartz (she sang "Popular" from Wicked with an ironic dedication to Gov. Rod Blagojevich; in the second half, she sang "For Good") and Andrew Lippa--who just happened to be her conductor for the evening!  Maestro Lippa led the Saint Louis Symphony with aplomb and only one noticeable false start.  Bravo to Mike Isaacson of the Fox for having brought all these talented forces together.  It's something we don't see that often.

One of the concert's high points, which typify Kristin's vocal versatility, came in "The Girl in 14G"--a witty riff on annoying singing neighbors (opera-wannabe upstairs; bebop-wannabe downstairs).  She has great command of the voice (voices?) she has developed over the years.  Her second half opener, Romberg's "I Wanna Be A Prima Donna," was yet another vocal acrobatic treat.

Ms. Chenoweth's banter with the audience and song-setups were quite engaging, if a bit long winded in parts.  She noted that this was her second performance at the Fox since the pre-Broadway tryout of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown and waxed nostaglic about seeing her signature at the show-mural on the walls of the Fox Theatre backstage area.  Her only misstep was a setup to a Stephen Foster song about hope, wherein she didn't want to come off too political, but bungled it akwardly into a pro-Obama statement.  While most of us (myself included) cheered when she mentioned "hope for the next four years," my mother, an ardent Palinista, sat silent, arms crossed.  (I think it was, unfortunately, a real buzzkill for mom...and she made it known as we left the theatre...*sigh*)

Now, I was hoping and hoping for a performance of "Glitter and Be Gay" sometime in the evening.  As the concert progressed, I got a little worried we may not hear it, as Kristin admitted she was suffering from a cold (thank you to the sound engineers for sparing us the requisite nose-blowing in between numbers!).  Nevertheless, after her "final song," Kristin took her bows...then slinked into the wings.  The prolonged wait for her second bow, coupled by the orchestra sitting down to prepare for another piece, tripled by a stagehand bringing out a table bedecked with jewels absolutely brightened my heart!  Kristin came out in her third dress of the evening to tackle that Bernstein coloratura-showpiece after nearly 2 hours of belting, hoofing and being a generally great diva.  What a performer!  What an evening!

Kristin, you make me glad to be a singer...and you make me even gladder to know that it's ok to be open to ANYTHING.

Later folks!

**UPDATE**

Post-Dispatch Classical Music Critic Sarah Bryan Miller reviewed the concert, and though she praised Cheno quite often, I felt cheated out of the obligatory zany, off-the-wall, WTF?! critiques SBM pulls out of thin air.